(314b) Digitalization of an Experimental Proton Conducting Membrane Reactor with Smart Manufacturing Principles

Smart manufacturing (SM) is a practice used in industry to optimize manufacturing processes and improve efficiency through enhanced sensing and the application of advanced data analysis techniques. These same techniques can be applied at the lab scale to accelerate the extraction of underlying relationships from complex processes. As such, SM techniques were applied to an experimental setup for high pressure and temperature electrochemical steam methane reforming based on proton conducting BZCY ceramic tubes [1]. This setup includes a tubular membrane electrode assembly, steam systems, pressure sensing and regulation, gas chromatography for product quantification, temperature sensing, gas flow control, and control of the electrochemical reactor with a potentiostat [2]. The system is connected to and operated through a single LabVIEW user interface that organizes system automation. This work is inspired by and built on the digitalization efforts from our previous work about electrochemical CO₂ reduction setup [3], that have leveraged automation strategies and reusable SM profiles, such as the automated gas chromatograph to quickly adapt to the new system and further improve it.

The experimental setup interacts with the CESMII's Smart Manufacturing Innovation Platform (SMIP) for data transfer, real-time monitoring, reporting, safe data storage, and hierarchical organization of process devices on the platform. The tools on SMIP are used to automatically generate and store calculated variables, deploy models, automatically train models, and online/offline data processing. Data collection is based on the design of each experiment, and procedures are scheduled to run the system through a series of conditions automatically to produce voluminous datasets at predetermined process conditions with minimal user oversight. This data is also collected in a way that facilitated the training of machine learning models and the design of system control strategies. Additionally, image processing techniques are applied to extract data from mobile cameras, such as a smartphone, to read digital screens of analog sensors, and record valve positions of the experimental setup then automatically update this information on the SMIP. In short, this work demonstrated how our research group is leveraging advanced technologies and collaboration with CESMII SMIP to advance the development of smart manufacturing techniques for emerging technologies like proton conducting membrane reactors.

References:

[1] Malerød-Fjeld, Harald, et al. "Thermo-electrochemical production of compressed hydrogen from methane with near-zero energy loss." Nature Energy 2.12 (2017): 923-931.

[2] Richard, Derek Michael. Development and Testing of Two Lab-Scale Reactors for Electrified Steam Methane Reforming. University of California, Los Angeles, 2021.

[3] Çıtmacı B; Luo J; Jang J; Morales-Guio, C.G.; Christofides PD; Digitalization of an experimental electrochemical reactor via smart manufacturing innovation platform. Digital Chemical Engineering 5, 100050.