Sensitivity analysis of the process conditions affecting the shunt currents and the SEC in an industrial-scale alkaline water electrolyzer plant

Bipolar configuration electrochemical stacks with a common or circulating electrolyte supply usually embody a high amount of shunt currents that escape from the main current path to the manifold nozzles. This paper suggests a novel and simplified semiempirical model to reasonably predict the total shunt currents in industrial alkaline water electrolyzers (AWE). The aim of the study is to perform a sensitivity analysis of the model parameters and the process conditions that affect the shunt currents and the plant’s specific energy consumption (SEC), and to determine the most important ones by analyzing the thermodynamic and fluidic properties of the stack. An in-house MATLAB dynamic energy and mass balance model of an industrial 3MW, 16bar AWE plant process was developed. The semiempirical dynamic process model is updated with the essential shunt currents and electrochemical, fluidic, and circulation impurity models. The study revealed the influence of the supplied current, the electrolyte temperature, the process pressure, the electrolyte flow rate, and the potassium hydroxide concentration on the shunt currents and the plant’s SEC.