I-V Characteristic and Performance of Three Electrode Alkaline Electrolyzer

Hydrogen production by electrolysis of water is seen as a promising technique as it is environment friendly and it can use renewable energy source for the production of hydrogen gas. However, this technology has less than 4% contribution to the production of commercial hydrogen in the market. This is due to the high electricity consumption of the water splitting reaction. The main challenge to make this technology efficient and economically viable is to develop cost effective and highly efficient electrolyzer. Here we have developed a three electrode electrolyzer in which an extra electrode is inserted between conventional electrodes: cathode and anode. This novel electrolyzer utilizes an extra voltage source which reduces the overpotential and increases the anode current of the cell, which is responsible for the hydrogen production. Furthermore, we observed that, the operating resistance of the cell decreases under the application of the new voltage source. Our results demonstrate that the introduction of third electrode improves the performance of electrolysis by consuming less power as compared to the traditional or conventional two electrode electrolyzer system.