Influence of ethyl acetate as a contaminant in methanol on performance of Electrochemical Methanol reformer for hydrogen production

Organic solvents like methanol is commonly used in pharmaceutical industries as a separation media in the purification process of drugs, and it contains various contaminants like ethyl acetate, methyl formate, acetic acid, etc. in the effluent stream. In the aspect of utilizing this industrial waste/effluent, we attempted to generate pure hydrogen by Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) based Electrochemical Methanol Reformation (ECMR) process. The present study reports, the influence of ethyl acetate as a potential impurity in methanol on performance of ECMR cell for hydrogen production. Initially, electrochemical half-cell studies carried out using various concentrations of ethyl acetate (0.25, 0.5 and 1%) and their effect was studied systematically. In addition, the ECMR full cell performance was also evaluated with these concentrations and performance deterioration observed during long operation hours and discussed the possible regeneration method in view of its further practical development. The observed cell performance deterioration was attributed to formation of reaction intermediates during oxidation of methanol-water, which was identified by using FTIR and NMR analysis. Potentiostatic mode with operating potential of ∼0.86 V was used as a method to regenerate the cell performance.