Abstract:
In recent years, green hydrogen has emerged as the prime solution for meeting the challenges of the energy crisis and climate change posed by the overuse of fossil fuels. Green hydrogen is the hydrogen produced from water-splitting reactions driven by renewable and sustainable energy resources such as solar, geothermal, hydro, wind, and biomass resources that do not emit greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and others. There are other different mechanisms and conversion routes for producing green hydrogen. Due to the increasing demand for hydrogen for various applications such as steel, off-grid electricity, ammonia, agriculture, and automobiles, there is a need for large-scale green hydrogen production. This technology enhancement is required to meet the coveted target of USD 1 per kg, H2. There are some established technologies such as alkaline, polymer electrolyte membranes, and solid-oxide electrolyzers for hydrogen production. However, several challenges in their efficient utilization are being addressed through the use of suitable materials and design modifications at the appropriate scale of production. Therefore, there is a requirement for a multiscale modeling framework for the selection of compatible and efficient material, and optimum design parameters keeping in mind the safety aspects and the economic viability of scaling criteria. Modeling and digital-twin development are high-performance tools that enhance and utilize the capability of electrolyzers and the associated balance of plants to develop efficient coupling with renewable resources for more efficient hydrogen production. This chapter focuses on the modeling tools and techniques that have been employed to develop reliable models and digital twins of electrolyzers for understanding optimum operating conditions to produce cost-effective hydrogen with high efficiency of conversion in the optimum pressure range. In addition to this, challenges with materials and design aspects have been discussed with a focus on the development of efficient, low-cost electrocatalysts for anode and cathode, porous transport layers, gas diffusion layers, separators, and electrolyte membranes to achieve high conversion efficiency, low gas crossover, and others. In addition, in this chapter, a discussion of the different cell architectures and modular designs of membrane electrolyzers is presented to achieve better conversion efficiency, low gas dissolution, and higher flow rate of the produced hydrogen with minimum components. Moreover, scaling or sizing of the green hydrogen production systems from cells and stacks upΒ to plants (10 MW to 1 GW) requires thorough techno-economic analysis taking into account the renewable energy capacity of the region and the costs of the equipment. Thus, discussions on the techno-economic analyses and case studies of such region-based and renewable energy resource-specific hydrogen production have been presented. Β© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024.
