Methane Partial Oxidation-Assisted H2O/CO2 Co-Electrolysis for Syngas Production in Both Electrodes

In conventional solid oxide electrolysis mode, most of the electric power is consumed to overcome the high chemical potential in forcing the oxygen to diffuse through the electrolyte. In this paper, a novel methane-assisted H 2 O/CO 2 co-electrolyzer was designed by combining solid oxide electrolysis cell (SOEC) with partial oxidation of methane (POM) to generate syngas in both sides. In POM-SOEC mode, methane is fed to the oxygen electrode to react with the oxygen produced by the electrolysis process, thus to reduce the chemical potential. Experiment performed on the Ni-YSZ/YSZ/SFM-YSZ single cell showed a voltage reduction from 1.2 V to 0.2 V compared to the conventional electrolysis mode at the same current density. The constant current test indicated that no obvious degradation was detected in 50 h operation.