FG Thermische Energietechnik
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To increase the efficiency of PEM electrolysis, simulation models are required that accurately describe the system's electrochemical and thermal behavior in a computationally efficient manner and are thus suitable for developing control strategies. Therefore, a pseudo-2D PEM electrolyzer model is presented in this paper, which is a compromise between the previously developed models regarding their model complexity. The electrochemical behavior is described with equations commonly used in the literature and the thermal behavior with correlations for gas-liquid heat transfer. Preliminary validation indicates that the model can describe the electrochemical behavior and thermal dynamics of a PEM electrolysis stack with good accuracy.
Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wurde ein Berechnungsmodell zur thermisch-geometrischen Dimensionierung eines kontinuierlich arbeitenden Druck-Wirbelschicht-Verdampfungs-Trockners mit Tauchheizflächen für polydisperse Braunkohle erstellt. Zunächst wurde auf Basis experimenteller Ergebnisse eine strukturell optimierte Grundgleichung zur Beschreibung des zeitlichen Feuchteverlaufes entwickelt. Dabei wurden die Besonderheiten des Trocknungsgutes (z.B. die Polydispersität und die Ausbildung einer Gleichgewichtsfeuchte) berücksichtigt. Mit Hilfe der für den Trockner aufgestellten Energiebilanzen wurde ein Modell zur Beschreibung des zeitlichen Verdampfungstrocknungsverlaufes entwickelt. Dabei wurde auch der Einfluss des Druckes in den Subgleichungen und Stoffwertberechnungen berücksichtigt. (Der Überdruck ist einer der Hauptunterschiede der DDWT zu zahlreichen anderen Trocknungsverfahren). Weiterführend wurde unter Anwendung der Gleichungen zur Beschreibung der wirbelschicht-bedingten asymmetrischen Verweilzeitverteilung ein Gesamtmodell – das Trockner-Auslegungs-Modell (TRAM) – entwickelt und die Modellarchitektur detailliert beschrieben.
PEM water electrolysis is a clean and efficient conversion technology for hydrogen production and energy storage, especially when coupled with renewable energy sources. In spite of its many advantages, the high component and cell manufacturing costs of the conventional PEM electrolysis cell makes the PEM water electrolysis technology commercially less competitive vis-à-vis its peers. An alternative and cost effective cell design has been proposed which has up to a 25 % costs advantage over the conventional cell. In this alternative cell design, the flow channel plate which bears the most material costs in the conventional cell design has been replaced with a 3-D Porous Transport Layer (PTL) structure. While both designs perform comparably the same at low to mid current density (0 – 2 A/cm²), it has been observed that the conventional cell by far out performs the low cost cell at high current density operations, due to increased mass transport limitation in the cell without flow channels. Since industrial and commercial hydrogen production efforts are focused towards high current density operation (> 3 A/cm²), it thus becomes obvious that, in order for the cost effective alternative cell design to establish itself over the conventional cell design, the mass transport issues at high current densities have to be well understood and described.
This research work seeks to understand the source of, and to eliminate the mass transport losses in the cost effective alternative cell design in order to get it performing at least as good as the conventional cell design at current densities up to 5 A/cm². To meet this objective, 2-D non-isothermal semi-empirical fully-coupled models of both cell designs have been developed and experimentally validated. The developed validated models were then used as tools to simulate and predict the best operating conditions, design parameters and micro-structural properties of the PTL at which the mass transport issues in the design without flow channels will be at its minimum, so that both cells can exhibit comparable performance even at high current densities.
The models developed in this work are based on a multi-physics approach in which thermodynamic, electrochemical, thermal and mass transport sub-models are coupled and solved numerically, to predict the cell polarization and individual overpotentials, as well as address heat and water management issues. The most unique aspect of this work however, is the development of own semi-empirical equations for predicting the mass transport overpotential imposed by the gas phase (bubbles) at high current densities. Also, for the very first time, calculated PEM water electrolysis polarization curves up to 5 A/cm² have been validated by own experimental data.
The results show that, the operating temperature and pressure, inlet water flowrate and thickness of the PTL are the critical parameters for mitigating mass transport limitation at high current densities. In fact, it was found that, for the size of the cells studied (25 cm² active area each), when both cells are operating at the same temperature of 60 °C, the low cost cell design will have a comparable performance to the conventional designed cell even at 5 A/cm² current density when; the operating pressure is ≥ 5 bar, the feed water flowrate is ≥ 0.024l/min∙cm², PTL porosity is 50 %, PTL pore size is ≥ 11 µm and PTL thickness is 0.5 mm. At these operating, design and micro-structural conditions, the predicted difference between the polarizations of both cells will be only ~10 mV at 5 A/cm² operating current density.