TY - JOUR
T1 - A systematic performance history analysis of a chlor-alkali membrane electrolyser under industrial operating conditions
AU - Franco, Filipa
AU - Prior, Jorge
AU - Velizarov, Svetlozar
AU - Mendes, Adélio
N1 - This work was supported by the (i) POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006939 (Laboratorio de Engenharia de Processos, Ambiente, Biotecnologia e Energia, UID/EQU/00511/2013)-funded by FEDER through COMPETE2020-Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalizacao (POCI)-and by national funds through FCT-Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia and (ii) NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000005-LEPABE-2-ECO-INNOVATION, funded by FEDER-Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional, through COMPETE2020-Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalizacao (POCI) and Programa Operacional Regional do Norte (NORTE2020). This work was also supported by the Associate Laboratory for Green Chemistry- LAQV, which is financed by national funds from FCT/MCTES (UID/QUI/50006/2019).
PY - 2019/1/15
Y1 - 2019/1/15
N2 - The history of the potential and electrical current evolution of an industrial chlor-alkali membrane electrolyser is a powerful tool to track its operational efficiency progress over time and for deciding the required maintenance instants. For this reason, the performance of a dedicated industrial NaCl electrolyser was systematically analysed as a function of its service time for about 8 years, recording the cell potential versus current density. The documented potential values were normalized taking into account the initial current density, which allowed to reduce data scattering due to small fluctuations of the current density values. The ohmic overpotential contribution, associated to the ion-exchange membranes, showed an average relative error smaller than 3% and the activation overpotential, related to the electrodes' performance, displayed an average relative error of 6%. Thus, the proposed approach enables rigorous assessing of the performance of industrial chlor-alkali membrane electrolysers for adequate scheduling of their maintenance, which leads to significant operational and economic improvements of the chlor-alkali process.
AB - The history of the potential and electrical current evolution of an industrial chlor-alkali membrane electrolyser is a powerful tool to track its operational efficiency progress over time and for deciding the required maintenance instants. For this reason, the performance of a dedicated industrial NaCl electrolyser was systematically analysed as a function of its service time for about 8 years, recording the cell potential versus current density. The documented potential values were normalized taking into account the initial current density, which allowed to reduce data scattering due to small fluctuations of the current density values. The ohmic overpotential contribution, associated to the ion-exchange membranes, showed an average relative error smaller than 3% and the activation overpotential, related to the electrodes' performance, displayed an average relative error of 6%. Thus, the proposed approach enables rigorous assessing of the performance of industrial chlor-alkali membrane electrolysers for adequate scheduling of their maintenance, which leads to significant operational and economic improvements of the chlor-alkali process.
KW - Chlor-alkali membrane electrolyser
KW - Energy consumption
KW - Overpotential
KW - Service time
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85059985169&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/app9020284
DO - 10.3390/app9020284
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85059985169
VL - 9
JO - Applied sciences-Basel
JF - Applied sciences-Basel
SN - 2076-3417
IS - 2
M1 - 284
ER -