Numerical investigation and experimental verification of proton electrolyte membraned (pem) electrolyser

In this study, the physical and the electrochemical phenomena occurred within the proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysis cell and the effects of some operating parameters such as cell voltage, current density on the cell performance were investigated numerically and experimentally. The equations which characterize flow, mass transfer, conservation of charge and electrochemical reactions were solved by using COMSOL Multiphysics commercial software. In the experimental setup, the Membrane Electrode Group (MEG) which has 50 cm2 active area, porous titanium at anode and carbon paper as gas diffusion layer at cathode are used. The numerical results compared with measured experimental data. It is sound that while the model satisfactorily agrees with experimental data at low current densities, it deviates at high current densities mainly because of isothermal assumption employed. The numerical results have shown that the oxygen and hydrogen concentrations increase along the channel. Also the hydrogen production starts at 1.48 V and it increase as the current density increase. However, the voltage efficiencies of PEM electrolyser for numerical and experimental study were found as 0.809 and 0.871, respectively.