Functional modeling of a system for the production of green hydrogen
Green Hydrogen; Electrolyzer; Direct Electrolysis of Sea Water.
Climate change, in recent years, has been more intense and explicit for society, as a result, energy from renewable sources has increased its installed capacity in different countries. In this context, green hydrogen is considered one of the main alternatives to enable the substitution of fossil energy sources for energy from non-fossil sources, acting as an energy vector to balance supply and demand for renewable energy. This thesis aims to develop a functional model of an electrolysis system using seawater to produce green hydrogen. The research is characterized as applied, in terms of nature; quali-quanti approach; regarding the objectives, it is exploratory and descriptive; and as for the methodological procedure, it is characterized as bibliographical research and case study. The research procedure included three stages: i) theoretical research, involving exploratory bibliographic research on the topics: hydrogen production, functional product modeling and technological prospecting and patent analysis methods, and systematic bibliographic review on electrolysis technology with use straight from sea water; ii) search and analysis of patents for direct seawater electrolysis technologies; iii) functional modeling of a seawater electrolysis system. As a result, 138 patent documents were identified and the main trends for this technology were presented, in addition to the construction of the state of the art for direct electrolysis of seawater. Furthermore, a functional model of a direct seawater electrolysis system was built based on the study of technologies available in scientific and patent documents, as well as using product development tools (Functional Structure, Morphological Matrix and Decision Matrix ), contributing to scientific and technological advancement in the area of direct electrolysis of seawater, in addition to contributing to the development of a system capable of producing green hydrogen without the use of fresh and potable water, an important factor for arid and coastal regions, that suffer from water scarcity and are favored by the presence of solar and wind energy.