Effects of Nafion content in membrane electrode assembly on electrochemical Bunsen reaction in high electrolyte acidity

Abstract

Abstract The electrochemical Bunsen reaction is an alternative way to traditional Bunsen reaction for hydrogen production, which can produce H2SO4 and HI in lower iodine and water condition in an electrochemical cell. However, energy consumption cannot be neglected due to its high electrolytic voltage. It is reported that the anode overpotential of electrochemical Bunsen reaction was much higher than other parts of the cell voltage. In this work, membrane electrode assemblies were prepared using a commercial 60 wt% Pt/C catalyst by spray method. The influence of Nafion content on the electrochemical Bunsen reaction was studied at room temperature (298 K) by multiple electrochemical means such as galvanostatic polarization studies, I V measurement and impedance studies. The energy consumed in the electrochemical cell was calculated based on hydrogen production. With the increase of Nafion content (13%–64%), the voltage and energy consumption displayed a V-shape. The experimental results shown that the best performance was achieved with a Nafion content of 37.50% for the voltage was as low as 0.6 V and the corresponding energy consumption was 290.5641 kJ/mol-H2.