(307g) eCherry: A modular model library for electrochemical reactors

With the rising need of defossilizing the chemical industry, the development of processes comprised of electrochemical reactors has become increasingly of interest. Since experimental investigations of novel reactor concepts are costly and time-intensive, computer-aided methods may aid in the design process. However, existing computer-aided models of electrochemical reactors have been tailored for one specific process concept, which makes them hard to reapply for other research questions with slightly different reactor and process concepts. Such reusability and adjustability can be achieved by (open) modeling libraries, which are well established in computer-aided process engineering for applications. However, we find such libraries lacking for electrochemical applications.

Herein, we present an open-source library in the modeling language Modelica that allows building models for a variety of (dynamic) electrochemical applications. We name it the Electrochemical Reactor Dynamics Modelica Library (eCherry). Modularization, inheritance, and aggregation as well as easy-to-use graphical representation allow the user to build highly customizable models in a quick and easy-to-understand way based on a structured modeling approach.

The model library comprises models for different components of electrochemical reactors that can be connected to form models of an overall reactor. Internally, these are again composed of models for individual phenomena, including model equations describing, e.g., conservation of species, transport phenomena, or (chemical and electrochemical) reactions. The component models contain connectors that allow exchange of material or current with other components. This library is written in the open-source and object-oriented modeling language Modelica, which allows the interconnection to other well-established libraries in Modelica.

In this contribution, we provide an overview of the structure and capabilities of the library. We demonstrate the flexibility and convenience with which the library can be used for the modeling of several different electrochemical applications by presenting case studies for e.g. alkaline water electrolysis and aqueous CO₂-electrolysis.