Abstract
Under the background of global carbon neutrality, water electrolysis hydrogen produced is a widely recognized technology to store the fluctuated and intermittent renewable energy. Alkaline water electrolyzer (AWE) is currently the most popular type of water electrolyzers, with the advantages of technology maturity, cost and lifetime. The parasitic current, taking about 2–10% total energy of AWE, has a great influence on the energy efficiency of AWE. However, its mechanism is not yet clear and reduction method is still under research. In this work, the parasitic current mechanism is firstly analyzed, then its routes are proposed, and at last an estimation method of the domain route of parasitic current is obtained by theoretical derivation with some reasonable assumptions. According to the theoretical analysis, the parasitic current occurs by three routes, namely Route1: electrolysis reaction happens at the electrode surface, and the current flows through the inlet and outlet ducts and manifolds; Route2: reaction occurs on the inner surface of the bipolar plate, and the current flows through the inlet and outlet ducts; Route3: The current flows through the inlet and outlet pipelines and the reaction occurs at the inner surface of pipes. And route 1 is possibly the dominated route of parasitic current. For parasitic current route 1, a theoretical derivation is obtained. Moreover, some feasible methods to reduce parasitic current are proposed.
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Abbreviations
- \(A_{{\text{duct}}}\):
-
Cross area of duct, m2
- \(A_{{\text{fd}}}\):
-
Cross section manifold area, m2
- \(E_{\text{n}}\):
-
Cell voltage, V
- I:
-
Rectifier current, A
- \({\text{i}}^1\):
-
Current flow through the diaphragm, A
- \({\text{i}}^2\):
-
Current flow through the bipolar plate, A
- \(K\):
-
Duct current at cathode, A
- k:
-
Manifold current at cathode, A
- \(l\):
-
Manifold current at cathode, A
- \(Q_{{\text{lye}}}\):
-
Lye flow rate, m3/h
- \(R_{{\text{duct}}}\):
-
Resistance of duct, Ω
- \(R_{\text{b}}\):
-
Resistance of bipolar plate, Ω
- \(R_{\text{s}}\):
-
Resistance of diaphragm, Ω
- \(L_{{\text{fd}}}\):
-
Length of manifold, m
- \(L_{{\text{duct}}}\):
-
Length of duct at one cell, m
- \(L\):
-
Duct current at cathode, A
- \(\upeta_{\text{I}}\):
-
Current efficiency
- \(\upeta_{\text{a}}\):
-
Overpotential at anode, V
- \(\upeta_{\text{d}}\):
-
Overpotential of diaphragm, V
- \(\lambda\):
-
Scaling factor
- \(\upsigma_{{\text{lye}}}\):
-
Conductivity of lye, S/m
- \(\upvarphi\):
-
Potential, V
- \(\upvarphi_{\text{m,c}}\):
-
Potential at anode surface in a cell, V
- \(\upvarphi_{\text{m,c}}\):
-
Potential at cathode surface in a cell, V
- a/A:
-
Anode
- c/C:
-
Cathode
- i:
-
Inlet
- e:
-
Exit
- n:
-
Cell number
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© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
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Gu, J. et al. (2024). Route Analysis and Reduction Method of Parasitic Current in Alkaline Water Electrolyzer. In: Sun, H., Pei, W., Dong, Y., Yu, H., You, S. (eds) Proceedings of the 10th Hydrogen Technology Convention, Volume 2. WHTC 2023. Springer Proceedings in Physics, vol 394. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-8585-2_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-8585-2_12
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