PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT OF SOLID OXIDE ELECTROLYSIS CELLSYSTEM INTEGRATED PARTIAL OXIDATION

Abstract

Solid oxide electrolysis cell (SOEC) is a hydrogen production technology based on an electrochemical principle. In order to reduce an electrical energy demand, a thermal energy can be applied to the SOEC for separating steam into hydrogen and oxygen. Partial oxidation reaction (POX) is an exothermic reaction that can produce high thermal energy. Thus, the SOEC integrated with the POX process would lead to an improved, high efficient process to produce hydrogen energy. In this study, modeling of the SOEC and POX integrated process is performed. Effect of operating parameters in the POX process, i.e., oxygen to carbon ratio, operating temperature and pressure, on the SOEC performance is studied. The simulation results show that the efficiency of the SOEC can be improved from 69.65% to 84.97% when it is integrated with the POX process run at the oxygen to carbon ratio of 0.645, temperature of 1373 K and pressure of 5 atm. Energy and exergy analyses of the proposed process are carried out with respect to changes in key operating parameters. The results indicate that the POX reactor is the unit having the highest exergy destruction.