Experimental analysis of couplings between electrolysis and hydrodynamics in the context of MHD in seawater

作者：Patrick Boissonneau, J-P. Thibault · 发表于：Journal of Physics D Applied Physics · 年份：1999 · DOI：10.1088/0022-3727/32/18/310 · 被引用次数：14 · 研究领域：Fluid Dynamics and Mixing、Electrohydrodynamics and Fluid Dynamics、Metallurgical Processes and Thermodynamics

The work presented is entirely devoted to the coupling between electrochemistry and hydrodynamics. It takes place in the magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) of a seawater context for direct propulsion or flow control. The experimental measurements reported were carried out in the small seawater tunnel of our laboratory using seawater with a NaCl concentration of 35 g l -1 . The first aspect of our study is the possible effect of electrolysis micro-bubbles on the flow, for instance, leading to a possible modification of the turbulent boundary layer or the effect of the flow on bubble characteristics. The second aspect is the effect of the flow conditions on the electrode working conditions, for instance the effective electroactive species and the electrode potential evolution. The main conclusions are that the electrolysis micro-bubbles do not affect the flow in the domain considered, but, in contrast, flow conditions act on bubble size and distribution. On the other hand, the competition between electroactive species (i.e. anodic reactions) is entirely controlled by the flow. Which means, from a practical point of view, that there is no opportunity to select an anode material that enables the selection of oxygen evolution instead of chlorine in the conditions prescribed by seawater MHD applications.