Theoretical Study of Hydrogen Production from High Pressure PEM Electrolyzer Stack

Proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzer is a promising technology and likely to be an important hydrogen generator. The ability to produce high purity-hydrogen and deliver it at a relatively high pressure is an important advantage of the PEM electrolyzer technology. The high pressure operation at the cathode cause hydrogen crossover from the cathode to anode and thus deteriorate of performance. In this work, PEM electrolyzer system to produce high pressure hydrogen with consideration of energy usage and hydrogen permeation is theoretically investigated. The electrochemical and hydrogen crossover model are coded by Matlab. The effect of pressure, temperature, current density and membrane thickness on designed stack performance is presented. The explosion limit of hydrogen-oxygen mixture is also taken into consideration to figure out optimal operating operation and parameter.