Effect of Constant Magnetic Field and Magnetohydrodynamic Convection on the Rate of Hydrogen Evolution Reaction in Alkaline Water Electrolysis

The hydrogen economy is built on three crucial pillars: production, storage, and utilization. Although these pillars are concomitant, production is the most critical pillar as it affects the sustainability, carbon footprint, economics, and purity of hydrogen. The cleanest way to produce hydrogen is through electrolysis, which also yields ultra-high purity (UHP) hydrogen (> 99.9%) that is essential for low impurity utilizations including semiconductor manufacturing. Such a high purity of the generated hydrogen gasallows it to be used for a wider range of applications than hydrogen produced via steam methane reforming (SMR), which also has a far greater carbon footprint. However, electrolysis currently constitutes less than five percent of the global hydrogen production. Moreover, the major barriers to widespread commercialization of this technology include conversion losses, process inefficiencies, and storage challenges, which reduces the cost-competitiveness and market economics of commercial electrolyzers. Therefore, in this project, I have investigated the effect of constant magnetic field (CMF) exposure and the resulting Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) convection on the rate of electrolytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). This type of convective enhancement prevents bubble nucleation and induces early detachment based on the theory of bubble evolution dynamics. The experiment was carried out using a Hofmann voltameter containing nickel and iron electrodes and 1M potassium hydroxide electrolyte, which was connected to an adjustable DC power supply. A variable gap magnet was used to generate varying magnitudes of CMF based on the separation gap between the neodymium magnets. Overall, exposing the voltameter setup to 175 mT of CMF improved the rate of HER by 0.079 mL/s compared to without CMF, and there was about 50% improvement in HER as the CMF was increased by 60 mT increments. The key benefit of this external efficiency-enhancement technique is that it may be implemented to a wide range of electrolyzers with minimal modifications to its design, specifications, and operation.