Idaho National Laboratory Experimental Research in High Temperature Electrolysis for Hydrogen and Syngas Production

The Idaho National Laboratory (Idaho Falls, Idaho, USA), in collaboration with Ceramatec, Inc. (Salt Lake City, Utah, USA), is actively researching the application of solid oxide fuel cell technology as electrolyzers for large scale hydrogen and syngas production. This technology relies upon electricity and high temperature heat to chemically reduce a steam or steam / CO₂ feedstock. Single button cell tests, multi-cell stack, as well as multi-stack testing has been conducted. Stack testing used 10 × 10 cm cells (8 × 8 cm active area) supplied by Ceramatec and ranged from 10 cell short stacks to 240 cell modules. Tests were conducted either in a bench-scale test apparatus or in a newly developed 5 kW Integrated Laboratory Scale (ILS) test facility. Gas composition, operating voltage, and operating temperature were varied during testing. The tests were heavily instrumented, and outlet gas compositions were monitored with a gas chromatograph. The ILS facility is currently being expanded to ∼15 kW testing capacity (H₂ production rate based upon lower heating value).