THERMAL-FLUID AND ELECTROCHEMICAL MODELING AND PERFORMANCE STUDY OF A PLANAR SOLID OXIDE ELECTROLYSIS CELL

摘要

The goal of this project is to develop a model that can guide the performance optimization of high temperature electrolysis (HTE) systems for hydrogen production. The currently considered HTE system concepts are based on solid oxide electrolysis cells (SOECs) that are similar to those used for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). The SOECs operate with an applied potential to electrocatalytically split steam into H_(2(g)) and O_(2(g)). There is limited knowledge about the intermediate reaction steps that define the phenomenological behavior of solid oxide electro-chemistry, especially for the less investigated SOEC mode of operation. Several electrochemical and thermal-fluid dynamics models have been developed for SOFCs and some of them can be found in the Refs. 1-3. However, none has been built for SOECs based on the first-principals of the governing electrochemical mechanisms. The model developed in this work appropriately couples the electrochemical mechanisms to the heat transfer and fluid dynamics in the operation of SOECs to guide the design and optimization of SOEC based hydrogen production systems