A modelling study on how AC:DC mode-switching can improve co-electrolysis operations on solid oxide cells

The production of syngas by co-electrolysis in solid oxide cells (SOCs) is limited at industrial scale by the operational difficulties of high thermoneutral potential and the shortened lifetime due to carbon deposition. This work analyses the effects of pulsed electrical current, named “AC:DC operation”, on a single SOC during co-electrolysis. The model is built in Python, and it represents an adiabatic dynamic simulation over a two-dimensional domain. The model parameters related to mass transport and overpotentials were fitted from experimental tests. It was shown that the AC:DC operation can be tuned to homogenize the temperature across the cell, reducing the temperature decrease from inlet to outlet (