Monitoring condition of electrochemical cells
AssigneeCalera Corporation
InventorRyan J. Gilliam
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Disclosed herein are methods, systems, and computer programs that relate to monitoring condition of one or more electrochemical cells or a group of the electrochemical cells in one or more electrolyzers.
Claims24
A method for monitoring condition of one or more electrochemical cells in an electrolyzer, the method comprising:
- characterizing a reference voltage range for one or more electrochemical cells in an electrolyzer during operation, wherein the one or more electrochemical cells comprise an anode in contact with an anolyte comprising metal ions, and wherein the reference voltage range is dynamic dependent on factors comprising current density and concentration of the metal ions in the anolyte of the one or more electrochemical cells;
- acquiring a voltage of the one or more electrochemical cells during the operation;
- comparing the acquired voltage with the reference voltage range based on the factors;
- and
- generating an alarm trigger when the acquired voltage deviates from the reference voltage range, thereby monitoring the condition of the one or more electrochemical cells in the electrolyzer.
A system for monitoring condition of one or more electrochemical cells in an electrolyzer, the system comprising:
- a voltage acquisition module coupled to each one of electrochemical cells or a group of the electrochemical cells in an electrolyzer and adapted for characterizing a reference voltage range and for acquiring voltage for each one of the electrochemical cells or the group of the electrochemical cells during operation, wherein each one of the electrochemical cells comprise an anode in contact with an anolyte comprising metal ions, and wherein the reference voltage range is dynamic dependent on factors comprising current density and concentration of the metal ions in the anolyte of the one or more electrochemical cells;
- a factor acquisition module adapted for acquiring data related to the factors comprising the current density and the concentration of the metal ions in the anolyte of the one or more electrochemical cells;
- a comparison module coupled to the voltage acquisition module and the factor acquisition module, the comparison module adapted to compare the acquired voltage with the characterized reference voltage range based on the factors;
- and trigger an alarm when the acquired voltage deviates from the reference voltage range.
A computer program product encoded on a non-transitory computer-readable medium, which when executed, causes a computer to monitor condition of one or more electrochemical cells in an electrolyzer, the computer program product comprising:
- instructions executable to characterize reference voltage range for each one of electrochemical cells in an electrolyzer during operation, wherein each one of the electrochemical cells comprise an anode in contact with an anolyte comprising metal ions, and wherein the reference voltage range is dynamic dependent on factors comprising current density and concentration of the metal ions in the anolyte of the one or more electrochemical cells;
- instructions executable to acquire voltage for each one of electrochemical cells in an electrolyzer during operation;
- instructions executable to acquire data related to the factors comprising the current density and the concentration of the metal ions in the anolyte during the operation of the one or more electrochemical cells;
- instructions executable to compare the acquired voltage with the characterized reference voltage range based on the factors;
- and
- instructions executable to trigger an alarm when the acquired voltage deviates from the reference voltage range.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.