As the threat of global warming continues to grow, there is an increasing need for low-carbon fuel. The team focus was on the design of a high temperature steam electrolysis system that will directly produce hydrogen from renewable resources. It is one of three complimentary senior design projects including a concentrated solar collector intended to provide thermal energy to the electrolyzer, and a supercritical CO2 turbine generator intended to provide power to the electrolyzer.

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Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cells (SOECs) were determined to be the most efficient electrolyzers. The project team identified ideal material properties and governing calculations to model ideal SOEC behavior. To further the technology used in green hydrogen production, a new SOE stack design was proposed with the goal of increasing the hydrogen production per unit volume of the stack. Three different computational models were defined and deployed to analyze the change in performance through various computational models.

 

The results from all three models agree: the nested stack design produced more hydrogen per unit volume than current, non-nested stacks. These promising results have the potential to change the way green hydrogen is produced, improving the size, design, and efficiency of stacks. The proposed design should be taken and manufactured so it can be tested experimentally and validate the computational results. From here, this design can also be incorporated into the larger system with the concentrated solar collector and supercritical CO2 turbine, creating a method to efficiently produce green hydrogen.​

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