Abstract—Study of the heat transfer processes is an
important component in understanding the energy balance of
an electrolytic cell. Computational modeling of the heat transfer
is thus necessary for electrochemical analyses. This paper
describes our efforts in developing a viable computational
model for heat transfer, in certain green electrolytic cells that
are driven by new molten salt chemistry discovered at the
George Washington University. As part of our initial efforts, we
model the heat transfer in a simplified electrolytic cell, and then
obtain electrical equivalent networks. Of particular interest is
the heat transfer in the presence of an endothermic reaction,
which prevents the use of simple lumped resistor components
for the electrical counterparts. In this paper, we derive closed
form solutions using both the thermal and electrical forms of
the model, and demonstrate their functional equivalence. We
are able to show that instead of solving a second order
differential equation, the electrical equivalent model allows for
numerical computation of the steady state heat flow. The
electrical analogue thus sets the stage for simulation of the heat
transfer on parallel computers, and also enables the model to be
extended for more complex structures.
Index Terms—Thermal modeling, electrolytic cell, heat
transfer, electrical equivalence.
V. K. Narayana, O. Serres, and T. El-Ghazawi are with the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, The George Washington University,
Washington, DC, 20052 USA (e-mail: vikramkn@ieee.org,
serres@gwu.edu, tarek@gwu.edu).
J. Lau and S. Licht are with the Department of Chemistry, The George
Washington University, USA (e-mail: jclau@gwu.edu, slicht@gwu.edu).
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Cite:Vikram K. Narayana, Olivier Serres, Jason Lau, Stuart Licht, and Tarek El-Ghazawi, "Towards a Computational Model for Heat Transfer in Electrolytic Cells," International Journal of Computer Theory and Engineering vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 215-219, 2014.
