Modelling and simulation of an alkaline electrolyser cell

Abstract

An enhanced one-dimensional model has been developed for an alkaline electrolyser cell for hydrogen production, based on linked modular mathematical models in Simulink ® .Where possible, the model parameters were derived on a physical basis and related to the materials of construction and the configuration of its components. This means that the model can be applied to many alkaline electrolyser cells, whereas existing semi-empirical models were generally developed for a specific cell. In addition to predicting the overall equilibrium electrolyser cell performance, the model is a powerful tool for understanding the contributions to cell voltage from the various internal components. It is thus useful as a guide to researchers aiming for improved performance through modified geometry and enhanced electrode materials. The model performed very well when compared to published models tested against the same sets of experimental data.

Performance assessment and economic perspectives of integrated PEM fuel cell and PEM electrolyzer for electric power generation

“…Additionally, partial pressures of the reagents and products were calculated through the law of ideal gases. These considerations are consistent with other studies in the literature [ 15 , 17 , 18 , 34 ].…”

“…Accordingly, water transportation through the membrane occurs through four different processes: electro-osmotic entrainment, diffusion, pressure gradients, and thermo-osmosis. When analyzing a membrane under constant temperature and pressure conditions, the flows induced by pressure and temperature gradients are ignored because their contribution to the balance is negligible compared to the flows caused by the electro-osmosis drag ( ) and diffusion ( ), which are the dominant mechanisms [ 18 ]. For both the electrolyzer and the fuel cell, the water flow balance is expressed as follows: where the electro-osmotic drag flow is given by [ 37 ]: and are the current density and the active area, respectively.…”

“…In practice, however, decreases with temperature rise. The absorption of Nafion® with liquid water is much higher, i.e., [ 18 ]. This difference between the equilibrium conditions of liquid water and vapor results from the Schroeder paradox [ 39 , 40 ].…”

“…A similar model was proposed by Abdin et al. [ 18 ]; this model predicts the influence of temperature, pressure, and water content on PEM electrolyzer efficiency. On the other hand, Han et al.…”

Hybrid Intelligent Modelling in Renewable Energy Sources-Based Microgrid. A Variable Estimation of the Hydrogen Subsystem Oriented to the Energy Management Strategy

“…In the first category, the works present complex models of the subsystems that require measurement of physical parameters, but these are often not measurable involve expensive techniques in their measurement. Example solutions are presented in [26][27][28][29][30] for fuel cell and electrolyzer models, respectively. All these solutions are based on the calculation of the polarization curve of both subsystems as a function of voltage losses due to parameters such as partial pressures, concentration of reagents, temperature, etc.…”