Multiphysics Modeling and Simulation of a Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cell

D. Grondin[1], J. Deseure[1], A. Brisse[2], M. Zahid[2], and P. Ozil[1]
[1]Laboratoire d’Electrochimie et de Physico-chimie des Matériaux et des Interfaces (LEPMI), Saint Martin d’Hères, France
[2]European Institute for Energy Research (EIFER), Karlsruhe, Germany
Published in 2008

Based on solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology, the solid oxide electrolysis cell (SOEC) offers an interesting solution for mass hydrogen production. This study proposes a multiphysics model to predict the SOEC behavior.

A global approach and several electrochemical kinetic equations were used for modeling. The simulated results demonstrated that a Butler-Volmer’s equation including concentration overpotential provides an acceptable estimation of the experimental electric performance.

The simulations highlighted three thermal operating modes of SOEC and showed that temperature distribution depends on the gas-feed configurations.

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