Airflow Management in Solid Oxide Electrolyzer
Hydrogen is being studied as a means of energy storage and can be synthetized to store renewable energy and successively used as a fuel for power production or transport purposes. High temperature solid oxide electrolyzers (SOE) are proposed as a technology to produce hydrogen with high energy efficiency and high power density. Within the studies on SOE operation, little attention has been given to the oxygen electrode side, where air is normally used as a sweep gas. In this study, we consider the option of reducing the air flow rate when operating an SOE stack. The advantages in terms of efficiency are calculated, showing that efficiency increases up to 2.8% when reducing the air flow rate
