Conducting Electrode Material and Pre-treatment of Electrodes Experiments

[fluc28]

I would like to study the effect of corrosion (on the cell or in the electrolyte) in my electrolysis cell with different materials for the electrodes: 

• SS316
• Hastalloy H or B
• alloy 42
• Nickel Foil
• and maybe a Sintered Mesh material

On top of that, I would like to determine the effect of pre-operational conditioning of the electrodes which may include cleaning of the electrodes and reverse potential treatment.

Can anyone offer any information or suggest a design experiment to effectively carry this out.  With polarization curves maybe.

[fluc28]

The reason for these tests is to create a cell that will produce hydrogen for over 10 years within an enclosed environment without any maintenance except the periodic addition of de-ionized water.  The cell already contains 20% w/w KOH solution at startup.  Theoretically, only H2 and O2 is bubbling out of the cell and no other chemicals or substances should be entering the cell.  Thus, corrosion is my only problem.  If anyone has any input on how to minimize this corrosion or ideas of experiments with the aforementioned materials and preconditioning, it would be of great value to me.

[Duranza]

There should not be any corrosion just as long as the water doesn't contain any contaminants...

[fluc28]

The reason I ask is that after two or so  years of running this electrolyzer with SS316 plates, a black sticky goo is found to be left on the bottom of the cell.  I don't really know what this is.

[Duranza]

well If the plates were not conditioned properly than I would say it was the Impurities of the surface layer of the plates. If they were then I have no clue. Are you using pure KOH?