HYDROGEN PRODUCTION FROM WATER ELECTROLYSIS CURRENT PRACTICE VS SUSTAINABLE ALTERNATIVES

Abstract

Research and development on sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels have become a prime focus for the last couple of decades. Hydrogen, one of Earth's most abundant elements, holds great potential as a sustainable energy carrier. However, as Hydrogen is lighter than air, it does not exist in pure form in the atmosphere and is often found in compounds, such as water. The abundance of seawater in this regard makes Hydrogen an almost inexhaustible source of energy. Nevertheless, sustainable ways of extracting Hydrogen from water, dealing with its high corrosiveness and significantly lower evaporation point, still pose research challenges. Therefore, this paper aims at providing a comprehensive analysis of sustainable Hydrogen generation by focussing on the application of electrolysis to recover Hydrogen from water rather than using common reforming techniques. Different parameters affecting the efficiency and the overall performance of the electrolyser process have also been discussed and possible solutions to tackle the problems are presented. Later, a case study has been conducted to demonstrate the sustainable alternative for hydrogen production for an alkaline electrolyser using solar energy. MATLAB Simulink platform is used in this regard. This paper concludes that at an irradiation level of 1000W/m2, a PV array with 57 parallel strings with four modules connected in series per string is sufficient to provide enough power for the electrolyser to produce Hydrogen.