Enhancement of a Bench Scale Parallel Plate Photoelectrochemical Reactor for Hydrogen Production from Sulphured Water

Abstract

The search for suitable photoelectrochemical reactor designs has been broadened recently due to the application of this technology to the treatment of wastewater. The configurations that have been proposed for this purpose range from parallel plates, fluidized bed, tubular and fiber optic type, among others[1], [2].Carver et al . [3] determined that the configurations that met the main criteria for the design of this type of reactor are tubular and parallel plate configurations. This paper presents the modification of a parallel plate photoelectrochemical reactor (UIS-GIMBA 1.0) and its evaluation in hydrogen production from sulphured water. For the different tests carried out, the reactors were coupled to a bench scale flow system to evaluate their performance in the production of hydrogen from water doped with sodium sulfide and sodium sulfite, driven the reactions to obtain a higher amount of hydrogen. Sulfide concentration and hydrogen production were monitored for four hours of operation, in order to correlate oxidation and reduction processes within the reaction system. The phoanodes used for this test were prepared to obtain a heterojunction of Bi 2 O 3