Feasibility of the hydrogen production by assistance of ethanol: A critical perspective

Abstract

Traditional electrolytic water splitting is one of the usual ways to produce molecular hydrogen. However, the specific slow kinetics of the complementary anodic molecular oxygen generation harm the efficiency of hydrogen evolution. One of the ways to get around this problem is to replace the slow oxygen reaction by another anodic reaction, with higher faradaic efficiency, such as those involving biomass derivatives, especially the ethanol, setting up the electrochemical ethanol reformer. Thus, in this work is made a critical review of recent researchers regarding the development of catalytic materials for both, hydrogen reaction and ethanol oxidation.