Comparative study of Hydrogen yield from magnesium waste products in Acetic acid and Iron chloride solution

Low-grade magnesium (Mg) waste from postconsumer products and production waste cannot be recycled efficiently and economically. This work addresses this challenge by converting this waste into hydrogen. Hydrogen (H2) offers a wide range of benefits and the greatest of them all is its ability and flexibility to be used as a green energy carrier. In this work Mg waste is re-melted, loaded on one side of a stainless steel and allowed to solidify at room temperature to form a galvanic Mg stainless steel couple. Mg reacts slowly with water and releases hydrogen at room temperature and this is followed by the formation of magnesium hydroxide on its surface. Stainless steel net is considered as a metallic catalyst and two acids as accelerators reacting with the couples separately. A set of couples were used to generate hydrogen in 3.5% by weight acetic acid (CH3COOH). The experimental results show that a mean accumulated H2 volume of 3.17 – 3.21 litres was produced in 3600 seconds. Another set of couples produced H2 in 1.5 wt. % of iron chloride (FeCb). The results confirmed FeCl3 as an excellent hydrolysis reaction accelerator with stainless steel as an effective catalyst. On average, the reaction yielded 2700mL of H2 over 3600 seconds which appear to be substantially higher than the litres achieve when CH3COOH was considered as an accelerator.