Hydrogen Production Via CH4 and CO Assisted Steam Electrolysis

Abstract

Porous composite anodes consisting of a yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) backbone that was impregnated with CeO 2 and various amounts of metallic components including Cu, Co and Pd were fabricated. The performance of these anodes was then tested in a solid oxide water electrolysis cell under conditions where the anode was exposed to the reducing gasses H 2 , CH 4 and CO. The reducing gasses were used to decrease the electrochemical potential of the cell and increase overall efficiency. The results of this study show that CuCeO 2 -YSZ anodes have low catalytic activity for the oxidation of CO and CH 4 and are not very effective in lowering the cell potential while operating in the reducing gas assisted mode. The addition of Co to the CuCeO 2 -YSZ anode resulted in a modest increase in the catalytic activity and enhanced the thermal stability of the anode. A Pd-C-CeO 2 -YSZ anode was found to have the highest catalytic activity of those tested and gave the largest reductions in the operating potential of the solid oxide electrolysis cell.

Performance and Aging of Microtubular YSZ‐based Solid Oxide Regenerative Fuel Cells

“…Where a cell is capable of being used as both fuel cell and as an electrolyser cell it is referred to as a solid oxide regenerative fuel cell (SORFC). Other applications apart from water electrolysis include CO 2 electrolysis, co-electrolysis of steam and CO 2 , or natural gas-assisted electrolysis [3,4,5,6]. The state of the art in SOEC for YSZ based cells using Ni-YSZ as the hydrogen electrode and LSM (or LSM-YSZ) as the oxygen electrode has been relatively active in the last decade.…”

Viability of Coupled Steam-Carbon-Air Fuel Cell Concept for Spontaneous Co-Production of Hydrogen and Electrical Power

“…Studies have focused on using carbon-containing agents at the anode of a solid oxide electrolysis cell (SOE) to reduce anode oxygen activity, and several studies have demonstrated the use of methane, carbon monoxide, and high surface area carbons at the anode of an electrolyzer to assist in decomposing water into hydrogen and oxygen. [16][17][18][19][20][21] The viability of solid oxide fuel cells utilizing solid carbon or syngas as a primary fuel source has been demonstrated further in a series of recent modeling studies. In one such study, Liu et al modeled the reaction of spherical carbon fuel particles in a molten salt in the anode chamber.…”

Elementary reaction modeling and experimental characterization of solid oxide fuel-assisted steam electrolysis cells

“…The performance of various anodes was then tested by Wang et al in a SOEC for the conditions where the anode was exposed to the reducing gases H2, CH4 and CO. Pd-C-CeO2-YSZ showed the highest catalytic activity and gave the largest reductions in the OCV of the SOE cell. [5] And direct oxidation of methane dominates and resulting in a higher ASR at low CH4 conversions. [6] At system level, analysis of Martinez-Frias et al…”