I think it works fine for hydrolysis, but believe the Ni2+ ions that would most likely leach off may kill the HOB. Surviving HOB would likely do so either by efflux or intracellular sequestration. The latter would make them inedible.
I don’t think there’s anything special about the sodium hydroxide, he’s just not wanting to produce chlorine or other gasses, hence avoiding chlorides, sulphates, etc.
This chap’s using potassium hydroxide as the electrolyte and stainless steel for both electrodes - although you can see the rust formation around the anode around the midway point:
Carbon could be our best value anode. I thought I’d find a video on it, and was really interested to see here that it does a better job in a magnetic field:
