A comparison of FEM results from the use of different governing equations in a galvanic cell part I: In the presence of a supporting electrolyte

Abstract

The use of reduced-order models for simulating potential, current density, and species distributions in an electrolyte are attractive due to the high computational costs required to solve the intricate set of highly nonlinear partial differential equations and boundary conditions characteristic of electrochemistry problems. The loss in accuracy of the reduced-order models is assessed in this work by the comparison of the results obtained by these reduced-order models to those from the most general model (i.e., using the Nernst-Planck-Poisson as the governing equation). The models were performed using the governing equations available on COMSOL Multiphysics®. For electrolyte concentrations typical of most environments of interest in corrosion and electrochemistry, the reduced-order models saved substantial computational time without significant loss in accuracy.