National Engineering Research Centre for Biochemistry, Nanjing University of Technology, Nanjing 210009, PR China.
Water Sci Technol. 2011;63(3):440-8. doi: 10.2166/wst.2011.241.
As an ideal fuel due to the advantages of no pollution, high combustion heat and abundant sources, hydrogen gas can be produced from organic matter through the electrohydrogenesis process in microbial electrolysis cells. But in many MECs, platinum is often used as catalyst, which limits the practical applications of MECs. To reduce the cost of the MECs, Ni-based alloy cathodes were developed by electrodepositing. In this paper hydrogen production using Ni-W-P cathode was studied for the first time in a single-chamber membrane-free MEC. At an applied voltage of 0.9 V, MECs with Ni-W-P cathodes obtained a hydrogen production rate of 1.09 m3/m3/day with an cathodic hydrogen recovery of 74%, a Coulombic efficiency of 56% and an electrical energy efficiency relative to electrical input of 139%, which was the best result of reports in this study. The Ni-W-P cathode demonstrated a better electrocatalytic activity than the Ni-Ce-P cathode and achieved a comparable performance to the Pt cathode in terms of hydrogen production rate, Coulombic efficiency, cathodic hydrogen recovery and electrical energy efficiency at 0.9 V.
氢气作为一种理想的燃料，由于其无污染、燃烧热高、来源丰富等优点，可以通过微生物电解池中的电氢过程从有机物中产生。但在许多微生物电解池中，通常使用铂作为催化剂，这限制了微生物电解池的实际应用。为了降低微生物电解池的成本，通过电沉积开发了镍基合金阴极。本文首次在无膜单室微生物电解池中研究了使用 Ni-W-P 阴极来生产氢气。在 0.9 V 的外加电压下，使用 Ni-W-P 阴极的微生物电解池的产氢速率为 1.09 m3/m3/天，阴极氢气回收率为 74%，库仑效率为 56%，相对于电能输入的电能效率为 139%，这是本研究中报告的最佳结果。与 Ni-Ce-P 阴极相比，Ni-W-P 阴极表现出更好的电催化活性，在 0.9 V 下，其产氢速率、库仑效率、阴极氢气回收率和电能效率与铂阴极相当。
