Paper No 348 – Electrochemical reaction and fluid flow analysis in PEMWE – 13th IEA Heat Pump Conference, Jeju, Korea
In this study, a numerical model is developed to analyze the electrochemical reaction and fluid flow in a polymer electrolyte membrane water electrolyzer using OpenFOAM®. The activation overpotential distributions of hydrogen reduction reaction, and oxygen oxidation reaction and the current density distribution by electrochemical reaction are analyzed; Then, the volume fraction of oxygen in anode and hydrogen velocity in cathode are studied to verify their influences on the current density distribution and activation overpotentials. Where oxygen gas accumulates in the porous transport layer of anode, the local current density decreases sharply; The maximum and minimum local current density are 10,263 A/m2 and 6,921 A/m2 at operating current density of 10,000 A/m2, respectively. Maldistribution of the overpotentials by electrochemical reaction are also observed by oxygen gas. This study contributes to the development of numerical analysis of polymer electrolyte membrane water electrolyte.