Electrolysis of water | EPFL Graph Search

Electrolysis of water is using electricity to split water into oxygen (O2) and hydrogen (H2) gas by electrolysis. Hydrogen gas released in this way can be used as hydrogen fuel, but must be kept apart from the oxygen as the mixture would be extremely explosive. Separately pressurised into convenient 'tanks' or 'gas bottles', hydrogen can be used for oxyhydrogen welding and other applications, as the hydrogen / oxygen flame can reach circa 2,800°C. Water electrolysis requires a minimum potential difference of 1.23 volts, although at that voltage external heat is also required. Typically 1.5 volts is required. Electrolysis is rare in industrial applications since hydrogen can be produced less expensively from fossil fuels. History In 1789, Jan Rudolph Deiman and Adriaan Paets van Troostwijk used an electrostatic machine to make electricity that was discharged on gold electrodes in a Leyden jar. In 1800 Alessandro Volta invented the voltaic pile, while a few weeks later

Scalable fabrication of functional nanostructures on stretchable substrates by capillary-assisted particle assembly and adhesion lithography

Shao-Chi Yu

The fabrication of metallic nanostructures on stretchable substrates enables specific applications that exploit the combination of the nano-scale phenomena and the mechanical tunability of the physical dimensions of the nanostructures. Due to the large difference in the thermal expansion coefficient between metals and polymer-based soft materials, patterning metallic nanostructures directly on a stretchable substrate is a known challenging task. In this thesis, scalable fabrications of metallic nanostructures on stretchable substrates by top-down and bottom-up methods are studied. Metallic nanostructures are first fabricated on Si substrates and subsequently transferred to stretchable substrates.In the first part of this thesis, fabrication of nanogap electrodes (NGEs) on a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate using adhesion lithography is reported. With wafer-level processes, the nanogap is created on an Al sacrificial layer by separating two Au electrodes with an Al2O3 nanolayer. By etching the Al sacrificial layer, the NGEs are transferred to the PDMS substrate. Tunneling currents across the nanogap on PDMS are measured under various mechanical deformation statuses of the PDMS substrate. The electrical measurement results show that the nanogap distance is mechanically tunable in the quantum tunneling regime. The NGEs on PDMS might be eventually integrated with micro piezo-electric actuators to become miniaturized tunable NGEs, which could pave the way towards the application of an on-chip single-molecule detector. Apart from developing the fabrication process of the NGEs on PDMS, a yield study of the essential step of the adhesion lithography, e.g., the tape peeling process, is also conducted to understand the design principles of the NGEs. The yield of the wafer-level tape peeling process is larger than 80%.In the second part of this thesis, chip-level (~ 2 x 2 cm2) fabrication of ordered gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) on a PDMS substrate using capillary-assisted particle assembly (CAPA) technique is reported. AuNPs are first assembled on reusable Si templates with pre-defined topographical traps, and then transferred to the PDMS substrate by etching the Al sacrificial layer. The reusable assembly trap has the shape of the funnel which is designed for high assembly yield (> 90%) and precise particle placement (offset ~ 10 nm). The assembly yield, the particle position offset, the yield of the transfer process, and the reusability of the assembly template are systematically studied. Two functional AuNP structures are demonstrated using the reported fabrication process. The first structure is the plasmonic surface lattice resonance (SLR) arrays of 150 and 200 nm AuNP. The optical spectra of the AuNP arrays on PDMS are measured showing pitch-related SLR peaks that agree with the finite element method (FEM) simulation results. The second structure is the dimer of 200 nm AuNPs which has a nanogap between two AuNPs. By assembling two AuNPs in the same funnel-shaped trap, a nanogap is formed between two AuNPs. Combining Au electrodes fabricated using electron beam lithography and the lift-off process, NGEs are fabricated and successfully transferred to a PDMS substrate.

EPFL2022

A mixture model to take into account diluted gas in liquid flow: applications to aluminium electrolysis

Emile Tryphon Pierre Soutter

Aluminium is a metal sought in the industry because of its various physical properties. It is produced by an electrolysis reduction process in large cells. In these cells, a large electric current goes through the electrolytic bath and the liquid aluminium. This electric current generates electromagnetic forces that set the bath and the aluminium into motion. Moreover, large quantities of carbon dioxide gas are produced through chemical reactions in the electrolytic bath: the presence of these gases alleviates the density of the liquid bath and changes the dynamics of the flow. Accurate knowledge of this fluid flow is essential to improve the efficiency of the whole process.The purpose of this thesis is to study and approximate the interaction of carbon dioxide with the fluid flow in the aluminium electrolysis process.In the first chapter of this work, a mixture-averaged model is developed for mixtures of gas and liquid. The model is based on the conservation of mass and momentum equations of the two phases, liquid and gas. By combining these equations, a system is established that takes into account the velocity of the liquid-gas mixture, the pressure, the gas velocity and the local gas concentration as unknowns.In the second chapter, a simplified problem is studied theoretically. It is shown that under the assumption that the gas concentration is small, the problem is well-posed. Moreover, we prove a priori error estimates of a finite element approximation of this problem.In the third chapter, we compare this liquid-gas model with a water column reactor experiment. Finally, the last chapter shows that the fluid flow is changed in aluminium electrolysis cells when we take into account the density of the bath reduced by carbon dioxide. These changes are quantified as being of the order of 30% and explain partially the differences between previous models and observations from Rio Tinto Aluminium engineers.

EPFL2022

Scalable fabrication of functional nanostructures on stretchable substrates by capillary-assisted particle assembly and adhesion lithography

Shao-Chi Yu

EPFL2022

A mixture model to take into account diluted gas in liquid flow: applications to aluminium electrolysis

Emile Tryphon Pierre Soutter

EPFL2022