1. Proceedings of the 2014 Midwest Section Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education
Training Engineering Students for Hydrogen Production using Nanoparticles
and Carbon Fiber Reinforced Composite Electrodes
Md. Shahnewaz Sabit Faisal, Rifath M.R. Shagor, Sayed I. Farid and Ramazan Asmatulu*
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Wichita State University
1845 Fairmount, Wichita, KS 67260-0133, USA
*Email: ramazan.asmatulu@wichita.edu
Abstract
Energy is a major part of human life and mostly produced from the fossil fuels. However, world
is running out of inexpensive fossil fuels, so it is needed to focus on alternative sources of
energy. Hydrogen can be the promising alternative to the fossil fuels because it is considered to
be an environmentally friendly and emission-free fuel. There is plenty of water on the surface of
earth, so splitting water by electrolysis to form oxygen and hydrogen molecules may meet the
future demands of the world. Hydrogen has several uses for the energy generations, including
hydrogen fuel cells, hydrogen power plants, hydrogen-powered engines, heating, household
use and many others. In this experiment, highly conductive carbon fiber composite was used as
electrodes in the electrolysis process. NaCl and conductive carbon black nanoparticles were
dispersed into tap water and then electricity was passed through the dispersion at different
DC voltages, leading to the formation of hydrogen and oxygen gas. The industrial hydrogen
production cost using acid and pressure is considerably high, and at this stage it cannot compete
with the fossil fuels. However, using nanoparticles increased the yield of hydrogen to a higher
percentage at lower voltages. The major goals of this study were to reduce the applied voltages
and increase the hydrogen production levels using the new setup in a cost effective way. During
the present study, undergraduate students were involved in this study to motivate them for
further research on the alternative sources of energy.
Keywords: Carbon Fiber Composites, Carbon Black Nanoparticles, Hydrogen Production,
Student Training.
1. Introduction
In order to satisfy the economic challenges, productivity of a country largely depends on the
consumption of inexpensive energy sources. During the past half century, the demand for oil, gas
and coal all around the world tremendously increased with the increasing population and need
for economic growth. The United States, Russia and China together produce about 31% of the
world’s energy while consuming about 41% produced1
. The International Energy Agency’s
following pie chart (Figure 1) explains the contribution of different fuels to the total energy
production in the world in 20112
.

2. Proceedings of the 2014 Midwest Section Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education
Figure 1: The chart showing the contributions of the energy sources in the world 2
. Coal, oil and
natural gas appear to be the dominating sources.
Above chart explicitly shows that oil, natural gas and coal in total contribute more than 80% of
the total energy produced in the world. Thus, almost all of our primary energy requirements,
particularly electricity and transportation are met by those fuels. Oil, gas and coal are fossil fuels
that formed after millions of years by natural processes such as anaerobic decomposition of
buried dead organisms in the presence of high pressure and heat. The astonishing unwanted
event of 1970’s oil crisis set forth a debate among the researchers and policy-makers questioning
the planning for the situation of the world completely ran out of oil2, 3
. Moreover, indiscriminate
burning of fossil fuels results high carbon emission that is primarily responsible for global
warming and climate change1-4
.
Petroleum is a constituent of fossil fuel, mostly used for the transportation and industrial
applications with 68% and 23% contributions, respectively4
. Other constituent coal is the main
source of the electricity generation today. US EPA reveals 50% of the power generated comes
from the combustion of coal and 20% from nuclear fuel. The remaining 30% is attributed to the
combustion of oil, natural gas and renewable energy. However, recent studies predict that there
is just over 20 years of inexpensive oil remaining and 10 years for uranium unless new reserves
are discovered5
.
Although nuclear power could be a better replacement, but sophisticated technology, high set-up
cost and nuclear waste management issues are the major setbacks for large scale acceptance of
the technology. Recent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster raises the concern of safety and
regulatory procedure for better robust system management. As a result, many European
countries are discouraging nuclear power as an alternative rather an emphasis on the
development of the renewable energy. There has been an extensive study on the evolution of a
novel renewable energy system using sun, wind, tidal wave and geothermal energy as an energy
source. However, none of those are successful to prove a better sustainable solution to the

3. Proceedings of the 2014 Midwest Section Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education
energy related problems. Hence, the world needs a source of energy that is virtually
inexhaustible, easy to produce and free from environmental pollution. Amazingly, water that
insures 71% of the airfoil of the earth could be a great solution1-5
.
On combustion hydrogen produces almost double heat energy in contrast to the conventional
hydrocarbon fuels. Hydrogen is a lightweight fuel, free of impurities unlike petroleum fuels that
need purification. Its other uses include energy storage, metal and petroleum refining and
ammonia production. Most importantly, the end product of hydrogen in fuel cells is pure water,
which eliminates the chances of loss of water in the process. Thus, hydrogen could be a future
fuel useful for transportation and electricity generation replacing the fossil fuels. Currently, the
most common practice of obtaining hydrogen as a byproduct is burning the fossil fuels in the
process of refining and/or gasification of natural gas, coal, petroleum and heavy oil 6-10
.
However, to meet the objective of reduced dependency on the fossil fuels and pollutions it is
needed to develop alternate means of hydrogen production for the demands of the world.
Electrolysis is an old method of hydrogen production currently serving only 4% demand could
be a great candidate with an improved technology. Electrolysis is a process of producing oxygen
and hydrogen by the application of DC current with appropriate electrodes and water as the
electrolyte. The resulting hydrogen from electrolysis is 99% pure and free from production
related pollution. In electrolysis H-O bond of water is broken with necessary energy supplied by
DC voltage. At standard temperature and pressure, i.e. at 250
C and 1 atm pressure the required
voltage measured is about 1.23 V. However, a number of design factors, e.g. electrode and
resistances in the system could be responsible for higher voltage requirement leads to lower
system efficiency. The standard practice of splitting water by electrolysis involves Nickel
electrodes in KOH solution that helps to lower electrolysis energy required as the ionic
activators.
Nanoscience has a vast potential to overturn the scientific world. It could greatly affect
engineering, medicine, energy harvesting and bio-medical research and application10-14
.
Nanoparticles are extremely sensitive to any chemical or thermodynamic change resulting
spontaneous reactions15
. Since the nanoparticles properties are greatly different from the bulk
materials, designing a system consisting of nanomaterials can improve system performance
significantly. Nanoparticles with almost zero imperfections and high aspect ratios are the main
contributing reasons for superior properties compared to the bulk materials of their own kinds.
Carbon black is a nanoparticle of few nanometers ranging from 20 to 100 nm of an amorphous
quasi-graphitic molecular structure and considerably safer to use in hydrogen productions13
.
They have an enormous surface area to the diameter/length, and subsequently a large number of
open bonds on the surface which can carry the charge easily to destabilize the water molecule to
produce hydrogen. Thus, carbon black nanoparticles conductance helps to bring down hydrogen-
oxygen bonding energy, subsequently reducing the total resistance of the system for higher
hydrogen productions 10-13
. In this research, carbon fiber composite electrodes and different
concentrations of carbon black nanoparticles were employed for the electrolysis of water at
various DC voltages. The mottos of this research were to increase the hydrogen production at
reduced applied voltages with the new set up in a cost effective way. The experimental results
were compared with only water and salt water for the further analysis.

4. Proceedings of the 2014 Midwest Section Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education
2. Experimental
The carbon fiber composite plates(length 11 cm, width1.5 cm, thickness 0.3 cm) provided from
the National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) composite lab, NaCl salt, and carbon blacks
(ELFTEX 8) manufactured by Cabot with the diameters of 20-30 nm were employed in the
present study without any further modifications. Wichita, KS tap water was used for the
hydrogen production. In every test, fresh surface of the carbon composite plates were used to
eliminate further errors through oxidations, colorations and other degradations.
In this experiment, highly conductive carbon fiber composite were used as electrodes.
Connecting wire and carbon fiber composite junctions were insulated by seal tape to ensure that
only carbon fiber composite electrodes exposed to water during the electrolysis process. These
composite electrodes have very good electrical conductivity and can work in solution/dispersion
for a few hours. Figure 2 shows the experimental set up of water electrolysis process with the
inclusions. The beaker was placed on a hotplate surface to maintain 60°C temperature of the
solution during the hydrogen productions.
Figure 2: Image showing the experimental set up of electrolysis process of water with the
inclusions.
Carbon black nanoparticles of 0.0, 0.00625, 0.0125, 0.0625 and 0.125wt.% were dispersed into
tap water (350ml) in presence and absence of NaCl salt. Prior to the electrolysis process, each
dispersion was sonicated for 30 minutes to disperse the nanoparticulates properly in the solution.
For better charge carrying abilities, all the experiments were carried out at 60°C on the hotplate
with a magnetic stirrer of 200 rpm. Each solution was tested with DC voltages of 4, 6, 8, 10, 12,
14 V. Hydrogen and oxygen produced from the electrolysis were collected in the graduated
cylinders. The amounts of hydrogen produced by the electrolysis process were recorded in terms
of hydrogen production rate(s) or HPR.

5. Proceedings of the 2014 Midwest Section Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education
3. Results and Discussion
The major aims of this study were to determine whether or not the hydrogen production rate
(HPR) could be increased with the carbon blacks, salt based electrolysis and carbon fiber
composite electrodes, and to train undergraduate students about this research. Carbon black is
highly conductive and has a very high surface area, and carbon fiber composite has also very
good electrical conductivity, which may be beneficial for the hydrogen productions from water at
lower DC voltages. It should be noted that an attempt was made to include a test series with %
carbon black concentrations. The results of the hydrogen production experiments were read on
the graduated burette cylinder on which the level of the water replacement by the hydrogen gas
was continuously marked. Since the rates of the reaction were compared, time was recorded for
each test, as well.
Figure 3: The hydrogen production rates of water saturated by salt and 0.00625wt. % & 50%
saturated test results as a function of the DC voltages.
Figure 3 shows the hydrogen production rates of water saturated by salt, and other conditions as
a function of the DC voltages. The test results depict that the HPR is considerably high when the
solution is fully saturated by salt. The only tap water tests without any salt and carbon black gave
low HPR. Since, water electrolysis is an endothermic reaction, applying heat as external energy
would accelerate the production rate. This may be because of the fact that external energy helps
to ionize water molecules more. At higher voltages, the production rate of hydrogen is higher but
from an energy cost perspective, the base line results show that an applied DC voltage of 14 and
temperature of 60 °C would be optimal for this process. However, at higher temperatures and
voltages the cost would be significantly high, which in turn will reduce the chance of the process
to compete with the fossil fuels.
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
4 6 8 10 12 14
HPR(ml/min)
Voltage (V)
Hydrogen production rate(HPR) when fully saturated
by salt and 50% saturated by salt & 0.00625 wt.% of
carbon black
0.00625 wt.% + 50% saturated
by salt
Only saturated by salt

6. Proceedings of the 2014 Midwest Section Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education
Figure 4: The test results of only tap water and different weight percentages of carbon blacks
(0.00625, 0.0125, 0.0625, and 0.125 wt. %) for hydrogen production rate (HPR) as a function of
the DC voltages.
Figure 4 shows the test results of tap water saturated by NaCl, and different weight percentages
of carbon blacks (0.00625, 0.0125, 0.0625, and 0.125 wt. %) for hydrogen production rate (HPR)
as a function of the DC voltages. As is seen, a similar trend like the base line experiment was
observed for this set of experiments. The HPR increased more prominently with higher voltages.
It was also observed that there was a significant increase in the HPR in the presence of carbon
blacks in the dispersions. This may be because of the charge carrying capacity of the nanoscale
inclusions in the dispersions. However, when the concentrations of carbon blacks were increased
to 0.125wt.%, there was a tendency to reduce the hydrogen production, which may be because of
the agglomeration and charge neutralizations of the nanoparticles in the dispersion.
The important source of error of this experiment is the bubble formation on the surface of
electrodes. The gas bubble formation reduces the effective surface area of the electrode and
insulates the electrode from the electrolyte solution. As a result, electrolysis process works
slowly when the bubble covers the composite electrode surfaces. This issue may be reduced in
several ways. One is with the mechanical means, such as a magnetic stirrer as used in the
experiment. Another is to treat the electrodes to make its surface hydrophilic. Again, adding
additives / surfactants to the electrolyte solution can reduce the surface tension so that the
bubbles will be released soon after their formation in smaller sizes.
Since this research was aimed at analyzing the effects of the composite plates and nanoparticles
inclusions in producing hydrogen at lower voltage, there are lots of positive impacts to take from
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4 6 8 10 12 14
HPR(ml/min)
Voltage (V)
Hydrogen production rate (HPR) at different weight
percentage of carbon black
Only tap water
0.00625 wt.%
0.0125 wt.%
0.0625 wt.%
0.125 wt.%

7. Proceedings of the 2014 Midwest Section Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education
the present results. Using different concentrations of carbon black nanoparticles and carbon fiber
composite electrodes can provide significantly higher production rate of hydrogen. Also,
involving students into this type of research projects would give them some experiences and
opportunities, as well as motivate them for the future alternative energy production systems.
4. Conclusions
A new water electrolysis set up was designed to test the effects of carbon black nanoparticles and
carbon fiber composite electrodes at different lower DC voltages and a constant temperature of
60 °C. The major goals of this study were to reduce the applied voltages and increase the
hydrogen production levels using the new setup in a cost effective way, and train undergraduate
students on the renewable energy sources. The test results indicated that the carbon black
nanoparticle inclusions considerably increased the hydrogen production, which may be attributed
the higher mobility of electrons/charges in the water dispersion. It was also observed that the
nanoparticles increased the production of hydrogen within a certain rage of its weight percentage
into the solution. The results are promising that hydrogen production through electrolysis may
become economically viable in the future and it may open new possibilities on that regard. The
students participated in this study gain a lot of experiences on the new hydrogen production
technology.
Acknowledgement
The authors greatly acknowledge the Wichita State University for the financial and technical
supports of this study.
References
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8. Proceedings of the 2014 Midwest Section Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education
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Biographical Information
Md. Shahnewaz Sabit Faisal
Mr. Faisal is a MS student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Wichita State University (WSU), and
has been working on the carbon fiber based artificial tendon project. He will graduate in May 2015.
Rifath M. R. Shagor
Mr. Shagor is a MS student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Wichita State University (WSU), and
has been working on the effects of surface functionalizations of graphene on the impact resistance of Kevlar Fiber
Composites. He will graduate in May 2015.
Sayed Farid
Mr. Farid is a BS student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Wichita State University (WSU), and will
graduate in May 2015.
Ramazan Asmatulu
Dr. Asmatulu received his Ph.D. degree in March 2001 from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering
at Virginia Tech. After having the postdoc experiences, he joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at
Wichita State University (WSU) in August 2006 as an assistant professor, and received his tenure and promotion to
be associate processor in July, 2012. He is currently working with 13 M.S. and 8 Ph.D. students in the same
department. Throughout his studies, he has published 71 journal papers and 161 conference proceedings, edited two
books, authored 30 book chapters and 4 laboratory manuals, received 32 funded proposals, 15 patents and 31
honors/awards, presented 73 presentations, chaired many international conferences and reviewed several
manuscripts in international journals and conference proceedings. To date, his scholarly activities have been cited
more than 800 times, according to the web of science.