Demonstration and System Analysis of High Temperature Steam Electrolysis for Large-Scale Hydrogen Production Using SOFCs
At the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, an integrated laboratory scale (ILS), 15 kW high-temperature electrolysis (HTE) facility has been developed under the U.S. Department of Energy Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative. Initial operation of this facility resulted in over 400 hours of operation with an average hydrogen production rate of approximately 0.9 Nm3/hr. The integrated laboratory scale facility is designed to address larger-scale issues such as thermal management (feed-stock heating, high-temperature gas handling), multiple-stack hot-zone design, multiple-stack electrical configurations, and other “integral” issues. Additionally, a reference process model of a commercial-scale high-temperature electrolysis plant for hydrogen production has been developed. The reference plant design is driven by a 600 megawatt thermal high-temperature helium-cooled reactor coupled to a direct Brayton power cycle. The electrolysis unit used to produce hydrogen consists of 4.01×106 cells with a per-cell active area of 225 cm2. A nominal cell area-specific resistance, ASR, value of 0.4 Ohm•cm2 with a current density of 0.25 A/cm2 was used, and isothermal boundary conditions were assumed. The overall system thermal-to-hydrogen production efficiency (based on the low heating value of the produced hydrogen) is 47.1% at a hydrogen production rate of 2.36 kg/s with the high-temperature helium-cooled reactor concept. This paper documents the initial operation of the ILS, with experimental details about heat-up, initial stack performance, as well as long-term operation and stack degradation. The paper will also present the optimized design for the reference nuclear-driven HTE hydrogen production plant which may be compared with other hydrogen production methods and power cycles to evaluate relative performance characteristics and plant economics.
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE - NE
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC07-99ID-13727
- OSTI ID:
- 935459
- Report Number(s):
- INL/CON-08-14241; TRN: US0804333
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 8th European SOFC Forum,Lucerne, Switzerland,06/30/2008,07/04/2008
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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