Hydrogen production by high temperature electrolysis with nuclear reactor

High Temperature Electrolysis (HTE) is a promising method because its most parts consist of environmentally sound and common materials. Hydrogen production efficiency of HTE was evaluated about the process coupling with high temperature gas cooled reactor. This process can be expected to accomplish over 53% hydrogen production efficiency at HTE operating temperature of 800 degrees C. As a demonstration of hydrogen production by HTE, a unit housing 15 tubular cells, where yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) was used as electrolyte, was constructed, and accomplished 130 NL/h hydrogen production. In this experiment, measured hydrogen production rate has good agreement with calculated hydrogen production rate based on applied current. To design and construct large amount of hydrogen production unit, it is important to predict the thermal and electrochemical features of the unit. To predict them, the simulation technology has been developed. From the comparison between single tubular cell experimental result and simulation result, good agreement based on current-voltage characteristic was acquired. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.