Simulation Modeling of a Tubular-type Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cell for Hydrogen Production in a Nuclear Power Plant

Steam electrolysis with solid oxide cells is one of the most promising methods of hydrogen production, which has high efficiency potential. Toshiba is developing a tubular-type solid oxide electrolysis cell (SOEC), which uses heat and electricity from a nuclear power plant as a hydrogen source. Both experimental and numerical approaches have been conducted. Simulation methods for predicting the thermal and electrochemical features of the electrolysis cells and stacks by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) have recently been developed. We developed a three-dimensional simulation model for the prediction of tubular-type single cell performances and the multi-tube SOEC stack design via commercial CFD code STAR-CD. An electrochemical model was built in the user subroutine of STAR-CD, and the electrical conduction equation was solved in addition to the transport equations of mass, momentum, energy and species provided by STAR-CD. The simulation result is in very good agreement with the experimental result as for the current-voltage characteristic. In this paper, we report the detailed simulation model and the analysis results. (authors)