Water Requirements and Exhaust Products of Solid Oxide Electrolysis Systems with Embedded Sabatier Reactors for 100 Oxygen Regeneration

摘要

A solid oxide electrolysis system with embedded Sabatier reactors is being developed to completely recycle 100% of the oxygen consumed by a crew using only metabolic byproducts of the crew. For a given carbon dioxide and water vapor supply mixture and flow rate, oxygen regeneration and exhaust products can be estimated based on chemical thermodynamic equilibrium theory. If enough water vapor is supplied, full oxygen closure can be accomplished with only a subset of the unit's SOE stack. However, the exhaust should be passed through the embedded Sabatier reactor to mitigate carbon deposition when the exhaust cools while exiting the unit. Doing so allows for further either additional water or additional oxygen regeneration by electrolyzing water vapor newly generated by the Sabatier reactor. If generating more oxygen, the design allows for over 95% single pass utilization of the input supply. Scaling equations for mass, power, and volume are provided that reflect the latest considerations from an actual SOE/embedded Sabatier reactor system built and tested.