Controlling the Hydrogen Generation Reaction from Waste Water in Oil Fields Using an Ionic Liquid

Hydrogen production technologies are attracting widespread interest in energy technologies. The conventional methods for hydrogen production suffer from high cost, restricting their production everywhere. Here, we use waste formation water from a petroleum field and carbon steel materials to produce hydrogen. The most suitable conditions have been investigated to maximize the hydrogen yield. In addition, an ionic liquid (i.e., tributylmethylammonium methyl carbonate, BMAMC) has been used to control the hydrogen generation reaction. We reveal that the amount of hydrogen release rapidly increases with decreasing pH of the solution from 6.7 to 2.5. A further increase in temperature resulted in more amount of hydrogen release. Our study investigates the influence of chloride ions on hydrogen generation activity. The results revealed that ionic liquid BMAMC remarkably decreases the amount of hydrogen release with an efficiency of 92% at 5.08 × 10^-4 M. The addition of ionic liquid BMAMC into waste formation water increases the activation energy of the hydrogen generation reaction. The Langmuir model is the best isotherm describing the adsorption of BMAMC on carbon steel. Finally, to confirm the adsorption of the ionic liquid BMAMC, scanning electron microscopy and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy analysis were conducted.