Modified carbon paste electrode with choline proline in enhancing the performance of water electrolysis system for hydrogen production

Abstract

Hydrogen has been under the light to be one of the future energy prospects to replace the non-renewable energy sources such as fossil fuels and natural gas. The drawbacks of the conventional methods in hydrogen production are the large emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) associated with the process that required a highly cost CO2 sequestration method to reduce substantially the emission. Therefore, this study focusses on the hydrogen production rate as well as power consumption per hydrogen produced through water splitting process. This study also emphasizes the utilization of carbon paste electrode (CPE) as the electrode in the water electrolysis system with the modification of CPE by the addition of amino acid-based ionic liquid (AAIL). Prior to the modification of CPE, choline proline [Ch][Pro] has been determined as the most suitable modifier for CPE through chemical quantum approach via Conductor-like Screening Model for Realistic Solvents. As the modification of CPE, the best optimum composition of paraffin oil to [Ch][Pro] was 90 vol% of paraffin oil to 10 vol% of [Ch][Pro] which can produce the maximum hydrogen production of 18.2 mL/h with the power consumption of 249.3 kWh/kg H2 as compared to CPE without IL modification with merely 8.0 mL/h of hydrogen production and power consumption of 378.1 kWh/kg H2.