hydrogen production from water using solar cells powered nafion ...

6. Cover the cathode GDL with 1mm thick silicon gasket.
7. Submerge the MEA into water and wait until the expansion of membrane stops.
8. Insert the wet MEA on GDL.
9. Place the anode side GDL on the anode graphite layer.
10. Cover the anode GDL with 1mm thick silicon gasket.
11. Place the anode side graphite with its mounted components on MEA.
12. Place the water inlet, hydrogen and oxygen outlet tubes into the anode graphite.
13. Place the copper plate on anode graphite.
14. Place a silicon layer on copper plate.
15. Fixate the anode side end plate.
16. Insert the cap screws to the bolts and tighten them diagonally.
17. Stick the thermocouple probe on to graphite.
After the assembly, deionized water was fed to the water inlet using peristaltic
pump. To make sure that water filled up the inside of cell, filling should continue until
flooding of water from oxygen output is observed. It takes 0.6 to 6 minutes according to the
water feed rate since the inner volume of the cell is 6 cm 3 . The oxygen output was
connected to the inlet water reservoir in order to return the unreacted water to the system.
Hydrogen output was connected to a gas liquid separator to separate the liquid water
coming with hydrogen. Finally water vapor was adsorbed using silica gel filled bubbler
from the hydrogen stream. Positive terminal was connected to the anode side, negative
terminal was connected to the cathode side to apply the electricity from the power supply.
Current applied to the cell was increased gradually up to 10.13 Amp which is equal
to 500mAmp/cm 2 for the proposed cell design. The other control variable, water flow rate,
was changed from 1ml/min to 10 ml/min. Temperature and voltage was measured
continuously. The setup of the single cell electrolysis experiment is given in Figure 3.5.
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