Mathematical Modelling and Simulation Analysis of Advanced Alkaline Electrolyzer System for Hydrogen Production

As a result of increasing global energy demand, conventional energy sources such as coal, gas and liquefied petrol are being depleted at an alarming rate. An alternative way to overcome this is by applying renewable energy as a backup energy supply. One of the useful renewable energy technology used these days is the production of hydrogen from electrolysis. When combine with solar-PV or wind energy, Production of hydrogen from water electrolysis has the potential to play an important role as an energy carrier for future sustainable development. In alkaline electrolysis the electrochemical reactions possess energy barriers which must be overcome by the reaction species, this energy barrier is called activation energy and results in activation overpotential which are irreversible losses. The purpose for this work is to investigate the I-V characteristics of an advanced alkaline electrolyser. The main parameters such as ohmic overpotential, activation overpotentials (at anode and cathode) affecting the performance of the electrolyser were investigated. For this analysis, the equations related to fundamental thermodynamics and electrochemical reactions are model in MATLAB. In conclusion activation overpotential was observed to be higher by about 80% compare with ohmic overpotential at the same current density.