Derivation of a novel model to describe surface potential and hydrogen production of an excited pyroelectric material in pure water

Abstract

The pyro-electro-catalytic induced generation of hydrogen gas is an environmentally friendly and sustainable way to convert thermal excess energy into a storable form. The main idea is, to make use of the spontaneous polarization of pyroelectric materials, that can be altered by temperature change. Thus, surface potential changes and subsequent electron exchange with surrounding molecules can be induced. In this work, a fundamental model to describe the behavior of a thermally excited pyroelectric material in pure water will be developed. The modell combines the fields of pyroelectricity, electrochemistry, diffusion and semiconductor theory. After derivation, it was used to explore some basic questions of pyro-electro-catalytic hydrogen production and the accuracy was tested on experimental data. The results show, that p/er has to be balanced out depending on the temperature gradient, to maximize the hydrogen production. The validation on experimental data revealed good agreement.