Predicting electrolyzer performance under forced periodic operation using nonlinear frequency response method

Tamara Miličić, Simon Puteanus, Xenia Becker, Steffen Bernet and Tanja Vidaković-Koch

Applied Energy, 2025, vol. 396, issue C, No S0306261925010426

Abstract: Industrial-scale electrolyzers are supplied by power converters with a mixture of DC current and superimposed current ripple. Therefore, electrolyzers are inevitably operated in a forced periodic regime. On the other hand, pulsed electrolysis, as a type of forced periodic operation, emerged as an attractive process intensification strategy. While the negative impact of the current ripple on the electrolyzer performance was reported, the positive impact of pulsed electrolysis was claimed. However, since both regimes are types of forced periodic operation, a similar effect is expected. To clarify this, we suggest the nonlinear frequency response (NFR) method for evaluation of the performance of a proton exchange membrane water electrolyzer (PEMWE) in forced periodic operation. The NFR method demonstrates a voltage decrease and power consumption increase during forced periodic operation of PEMWE in comparison to the steady-state operation, agreeing remarkably well with experiments and numerical simulations. Furthermore, the NFR method reveals that the voltage decrease is a consequence of the system’s nonlinear kinetics, and the power requirements are influenced by both linear and nonlinear phenomena. Linear contributions tend to increase power requirements, while nonlinear contributions decrease them. However, regardless of the operating conditions, linear contributions prevail, leading to increased power consumption during forced periodic operation. At the usual operating current densities, ohmic contributions dominate the PEMWE power increase. Overall, the NFR method proves advantageous for analyzing forced periodic operations, providing an analytical tool to calculate the electrolyzer’s losses during such conditions and guide system design, especially of the supplying power converter.

Keywords: Water electrolysis; Power consumption; Nonlinear frequency response (NFR); Pulsed electrolysis; Current ripple; Forced periodic operation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261925010426
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:396:y:2025:i:c:s0306261925010426

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2025.126312

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().