Development and analysis of a new light-based hydrogen production system

• To develop and design light-based photoelectrochemical hydrogen production system.
• To use a polymeric membrane electrode assembly as photoelectrode.
• To investigate the effects of key variables on product yields and system performance.
• To perform energy and exergy analyses for photoelectrochemical process.

The photoelectrochemical water splitting cycle is one of the most attractive photoelectrochemical processes for clean hydrogen production, due to its lower temperature requirement and better overall efficiency. In this study, a novel continuous hydrogen production system is designed which takes light as an input. This system is able to split water electrochemically without creating any pollutants. The mass, energy, voltage, entropy, and exergy balance equations for the PEC system are written and analysed. The energy and exergy efficiencies for the PEC are defined and calculated. Parametric studies are conducted by varying dead state properties and operating conditions to investigate their effects on the system performance. The proposed system can reach up to a hydrogen production rate of 24 μg/s for a cell voltage of 2.5 V with an inlet mass flow rate of 0.01 kg/s.