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Multiphysics simulation for electrochemical hydrogen pumping with ultralow concentration down to 1 PPM
Subedi, Nabin
Subedi, Nabin
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t25049_Subedi.pdf
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2025-07
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Electrochemical hydrogen pumping (EHP) is a process that “pumps” hydrogen element from one side of the electrode (anode) to the other (cathode) driven by electric potential. EHP has been introduced in tremendous applications including hydrogen separation, purification, recovery, and compression.
The overarching objective of the EHP simulation is to acquire the design insights into the high-performance hydrogen sensing by EHP ultralow concentration (such as 1 ppm) to high concentration so that it can be sensed by commercial sensor. Leveraging COMSOL Multiphysics software platform, four typical cell designs were compared, and one was chosen as the benchmark system. The detailed operational conditions (applied cell volage, flow velocity, and initial hydrogen concentration) and sensitive geometry parameters (thickness of the anode chamber, thickness of the anode carbon substrate, and the length of the anode inlet), and pertinent materials properties (catalyst loading, porosity, and permeability) were examined with respect to the current response from the hydrogen pump.
With the typical simulation conditions (1 m/s of anode flow rate at 1 ppm of hydrogen, and 250 mV of applied cell voltage), the process of hydrogen pumping was successfully simulated with convergent and consistent results. Specifically, the hydrogen concentration was enriched from 1 ppm at the anode inlet to 214 ppm on average in the cathode outlet, while delivering the hydrogen response of 0.088−0.115 mA/cm2. Meanwhile, the highest velocity at anode outlet was 35.7 m/s and the average velocity at cathode outlet was around 60 nm/s.
Our simulation results provide a design guideline (operational conditions, cell geometries, and materials properties) that closely predicts real-world pumping behaviors before manufacturing.
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Thesis (M.S.)-- Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
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Wichita State University
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© Copyright 2025 by Nabin Subedi
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