Computational fluid dynamics study on the anode feed solid polymer electrolyte water electrolysis

A steady-state two-dimensional model for the anode feed solid polymer electrolyte water electrolysis (SPEWE) is proposed in this paper. Finite element procedure was employed to calculate the multicomponent transfer model coupled with fluid flow in flow channels and gas diffusion layers and electrochemical kinetics in catalyst reactive surface. The performance of the anode feed SPEWE predicted by this model was compared with the published experimental results and reasonable agreement was reached. The results show that oxygen mass fraction increases because of the water oxidation when water flows from the import to the export on the anode side. On the cathode side, hydrogen mass fraction varies little since hydrogen and water mix well. The flux of water across the electrolyte increased almost linearly with the increase of the applied current density. Since the ohmic overpotential loss increasing as the solid polymer electrolytes’ thickness increasing, the performance of the anode feed SPEWE with Nafion 112, 115, 117 decreases at the same applied current density.