Comparison of various structure designs of SO2-depolarized electrolysis cell

SO2-depolarized electrolysis (SDE) is the key step of the hybrid sulfur (HyS) process, which is one of the simplest thermochemical cycles for producing hydrogen by water splitting. Exploration and optimization of flow field/structure design is essential for improving the efficiency of SDE. In this work, graphite plates with different flow channels, together with porous graphite felts or carbon papers as diffusion layers are adopted to fabricate SDE cells with different structures. Evaluation of the cell structures is carried out, by comparing the SDE performance and taking into account the fluid resistance (pressure drop) of anode side. The effects of graphite felt compression ratio, hydrophilicity or hydrophobicity of carbon papers, anodic fluid flow rate, and operating temperature on the SDE performance are investigated. Square porous flow fields provided by graphite felts show excellent performance. Serpentine channel covered by hydrophobic carbon paper reveals advantages when adopted on the cathode side. Combination of above two flow fields and using them on anode and cathode sides respectively, could achieve excellent SDE performance. Under the condition of 40 degrees C and 360 mL/min anolyte flow rate, the current density could reach 760 mA/cm2 at the cell voltage of 1.19 V. (c) 2022 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.