Cathodic hydrogen recovery using Y zeolites loaded nickel(II) Oxide instead of Pt/C in microbial electrolysis cell

ABSTRACT

A highly efficient electrode material is required to explore and apply to microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) with high hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) efficiency. Pt/C was one of the most efficient catalysts for hydrogen production in current lab research, but it was expensive and some chemicals in wastewater were prone to Pt poisoning, which was a great limitation in application. Thus, a cheap and effective nickel(II) Oxide/Y (NiO/Y) material was prepared by using Y zeolites as carrier loaded with NiO in this study, which was used in MEC to evaluate the hydrogen evolution performance in comparison with Pt/C. The results indicated that NiO/Y composites showed a competitive HER performance to Pt/C. The linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) tests and Tafel plots showed that the NiO/Y composites exhibited the best catalytic activity for HER. In the MEC tests, the NiO/Y composites cathode was comparable with the Pt/C cathode in terms of current densities and energy efficiency. The coulombic efficiency, cathodic energy efficiency rate and hydrogen production rate obtained with NiO/Y cathode MEC was 85.88 ± 6.5%, 228.39 ± 3.2% and 0.83 ± 0.05 m³/m³d under, respectively, which were slightly higher than those obtained with the Pt/C cathode MEC. It was concluded that even with the cheap Y zeolites as the supports, the NiO/Y materials showed the superior performance, which was attributed to a good dispersing of the active component of NiO on the large specific surface area of Y zeolites and the fast escape of hydrogen bubbles from microporous and mesoporous structure of Y zeolites.

KEYWORDS:

• NiO/Y composites
• hydrogen evolution reaction
• microbial electrolysis cell(MEC)
• Pt/C cathode
• zeolites

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shanxi Province (No. 201701D121042), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21802101)

Notes on contributors

Gai Wang

Gai Wang  master, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, Shanxi, P.R. China, engaged in the research of catalytic materials.

Qiong Bo

Qiong Bo master, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, Shanxi, P.R. China, engaged in the research of catalytic materials.

Donghua Yang

Donghua Yang Ph. D., Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, Shanxi, P.R. China, engaged in the research of catalytic materials.

Yupeng Li

Yupeng Li master, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, Shanxi, P.R. China, engaged in the research of catalytic materials.

Yanchun Li

Yanchun Li Ph. D., Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, Shanxi, P.R. China, engaged in the research of catalytic materials.

Chao Ge

Chao Ge Ph. D., Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, Shanxi, P.R. China, engaged in catalyst preparation and preparation of high performance textile materials.