19th International Conference on Renewable Energies and Power Quality (ICREPQ’21)

Almeria (Spain), 28th to 30th July 2021

Renewable Energy and Power Quality Journal (RE&PQJ)
ISSN 2172-038 X, Volume No.19, September 2021

Design of a LLC Resonant Converter

for Powering a PEM Electrolyzer
G. Vitale1, F. Castaldi2 and D. Guilbert3
1
ICAR, Institute for high performance computing and networking, National Research Council of Italy,
via Ugo La Malfa 153, Palermo, Italy. Email: gianpaolo.vitale (at) car.cnr.it;
2
Department of Engineering, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, Palermo, Italy; castaldifabiola_94 (at) libero.it;
3
Université de Lorraine, GREEN, F-54000 Nancy, France; damien.guilbert (at) univ-lorraine.fr;

Abstract. This paper proposes the design of a LLC resonant specific energy consumption and energy efficiency
converter to supply a proton exchange membrane (PEM) [16,17].
electrolyzer. The PEM requires a low voltage with high current, Another challenge consists on the efficiency of the
a reduced output voltage ripple, and an overdamped dynamic energy conversion process; to be competitive, the power
behavior of the converter to avoid voltage overshoots. The converter should have the highest possible efficiency. It
designed converter allows satisfying the design constraints, is a challenge considering that a high reduction ratio of
minimizing switching and reverse recovery losses; the efficiency the voltage is necessary since the electrolyzer requires a
is influenced mainly by the output rectifier's conduction losses.
low voltage; thus, high currents have to be managed to
reach the rated power.
Key words. PEM electrolyzer; LLC converter, Zero To lessen switching losses, resonant converters, either
Voltage Switching, energy efficiency. in series (SRC) or in parallel (PRC) configuration, can be
employed since they allow the commutation of the power
1. Introduction switch with either the voltage or the current null. On the
other hand, their operation is satisfactorily only near the
Hydrogen is the simplest element on Earth; it can be resonant frequency, and the regulation suffers from light
employed to store and deliver energy. Unfortunately, load conditions. Differently, LLC resonant converters, by
Hydrogen does not exist by itself in nature; hence it exploiting the transformer's magnetizing inductance, are
requires to be produced mainly by combining carbon (e.g., more flexible during operation even if the design is more
oil, natural gas) and with oxygen in water (H2O) [1, 2]. complicated [19, 21].
The hydrogen produced by the electrolysis of water is The literature proposes several applications of LLC
still a small part representing only 4% of that obtained by both for high and low power. As an example, [22]
fossil fuels (i.e., natural gas, oil) [3]. It is mainly due to the proposes a hybrid LLC resonant converter with three
lower cost when fossil fuels are used. In fact, water modes of operation for on-board chargers of electric
electrolysis needs the use of electrolyzers that are quite vehicles, [23] exploits a three-level configuration for
expensive. On the other hand, the use of renewable energy wide input voltage applications. In [24], the use of LLC
sources (RES) to produce electric energy for water converter is discussed as front-end for DC/DC converters
electrolysis allows environmentally friendly hydrogen whereas [25] proposes the use of LLC converter together
production, known as green hydrogen [4,5]. with partial power conversion to achieve high step-down
There are three types of electrolyzers: Alkaline, proton ratio; finally, in [26] a power supply for LED lighting
exchange membrane (PEM), and solid oxide (SO) based on LLC converter is proposed.
technologies; they differ for the electrolyte and ions The use of an LLC converter has not yet been
transportation [3]. Alkaline and PEM technologies are investigated to power an electrolyzer. In this case, some
available in the market; their supply needs a DC voltage additional constraints, as the reduced output voltage
(ranging from a few to hundreds of volt) and DC currents ripple and the overdamped response have to be
(from ten to thousands of amp). For this reason, a power considered.
converter is required [6,7]. In particular, when the supply This paper proposes the design of a LLC converter for
is a power grid or a wind turbine, the AC/DC converters a proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzer. This
must be adopted; differently, solar panels can be interfaced converter exploits resonance to minimize switching
with DC/DC converters. The use of power converters losses by zero voltage switching (ZVS) commutation of
implies to study the current and voltage ripple effects both the power switches. The design is discussed concerning
on the power supply side and on the electrolyzer side [7- the load features, and considering a DC supply delivered
11]. The literature highlighted the negative impact of by the single-phase power grid.
current ripple from power electronics on the electrolyzers'

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2. Main features of a PEM Electrolyzer grid by a converter given by manufacturer; however for
this research purpose, it has been delivered without the
The proton exchange membrane electrolyzers employ power supply. The maximum voltage required at the
solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) to manage the protons’ input terminals is equal to 5V (corresponding to a DC
transfer from the anode to the cathode, the separation of current of about 45A). A photograph of the electrolyzer
the generated gas both at the anode and cathode, and the is shown in figure 2.
electrical insulation between both electrodes. The chemical
reaction is the following:

(1)

(2)

(3)

Eq. (1) shows that into the anode, the water molecules
are split into oxygen and positively charged protons. Then,
protons pass through the SPE towards the cathode where,
according to (2), they are combined with electrons coming
from the power supply to make hydrogen. It should be
underlined that, as a result of the global reaction, see eq.
(3), only oxygen is obtained as a waste product, Fig.2. External view of the QL-300 electrolyzer
confirming the absence of pollution. The operation of a
proton exchange membrane water electrolyzer is
schematically shown in figure 1. 4. The LLC resonant half-bridge converter
The reaction described by (1) requires energy to be
performed; it corresponds to Gibbs energy (237 kJ.mol−1), The designed circuit chosen to supply the electrolyzer
further energy is lost as heat (48.6 kJ.mol−1) [7, 27]. is a resonant LLC converter in half-bridge configuration
Finally, not all electrons delivered by the power supply as in [18]. The electric scheme is shown in figure 3.
will be converted into hydrogen; the phenomenon is Three main parts can be recognized: the half-bridge, the
described by Faraday efficiency [4, 28]. resonant circuit, and the converter’s secondary side.

A. The half-bridge
The half-bridge aims to give a unipolar square-wave
voltage. It is formed by two MOSFETs driven with a
50% duty cycle. A dead time between two consecutive
transitions allows both to avoid cross-conduction and
achieve the ZVS condition to minimize switching losses.

B. The resonant circuit.

The resonant circuit is formed by a resonant capacitance
and two inductors. The former inductor is a discrete
component, whereas the latter is obtained by exploiting
the transformer’s magnetizing inductance. The resonant
circuit is interposed between the half-bridge and the load.
The resonant current allows both delivering energy to the
transformer and obtain ZVS. The transformer lessens the
AC voltage and assures galvanic insolation.
Fig.1. Operation principle for a PEM electrolyzer
C. The secondary side
The transformer output voltage is converted into DC
voltage by a full-wave rectifier with a centre tap
3. The electrolyzer under study configuration. An output capacitor minimizes the voltage
ripple before supplying the electrolyzer.
The electrolyzer to be supplied by the proposed
converter is the model QL-300 PEM Hydrogen Generator D. Operating principle
produced by Fuel Cell Store (Product Code: 1021882). It A traditional series resonant converter (SRL) exhibits a
uses SPE/PEM technology to produce hydrogen with high minimum impedance at the resonant frequency. Due to
purity (99.999 %). The QL-300 shows an output pressure this selective property, the impedance is much higher far
rate ranging up to 310 ml/min and requires an input power from the resonant frequency.
of 150W. The standard configuration is supplied by the

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 Fig.3 Electric scheme of the LLC resonant converter

The amount of current that can be delivered to the load guarantee the energy balance to the load and,
depends both on the resonant circuit’s impedance at the consequently, higher conduction losses in the primary
frequency of the square wave supply and on the load's and secondary circuit will occur.
impedance. As a consequence, a wide input frequency Finally, When the switching frequency is higher than fo,
variation is required to compensate for input and output a smaller circulating current will be present both in the
variations. primary and secondary circuit, reducing conduction
In a LLC converter, there are two characteristic losses, but the rectifier diodes will suffer reverse
frequencies: the former, fo, is equal to the resonant recovery losses since they are not softly commutated.
frequency of a SRC and corresponds to the one defined by The ZVS condition for MOSFETs can still be achieved.
the inductor and capacitor Lr and Cr , respectively, as in The LLC converter's design is performed to operate in
(1); the latter, fp, takes into consideration the contribution the neighbourhood of fo and exploits a suitable gain
of the magnetizing inductance of the transformer Lm as in function defined based on the converter’s parameters. To
(2). calculate the transfer function, the first approximation
method (FHA) can be adopted. Under the hypothesis that
(1) the converter is operated near fo, the current flowing the
√ resonant circuit can be approximated as purely
sinusoidal. In this way, instead of the equivalent circuit
√( ) (2) of the LLC shown in figure 4a, the linear sinusoidal
circuit shown in figure 4b can be adopted, where Vge is
As the load is varied, the resonance frequency, fco, the fundamental component of Vsq supplying the circuit
ranges from fp to fo. Particularly, at no load fco= fp of figure 4b and Voe the fundamental component of Vso.
whereas in a short circuit condition, fco= fo. This feature Based on FHA, the transfer function and the gain of the
allows to define a family of curves within the range converter can be defined as:
fpfcofo; on the other hand, the design procedure is more
complicated.
As concerns the design, the parameters of interest are: (3)
⁄
the voltage across the MOSFETs that should be as low as
possible during commutation to achieve the ZVS, the
Where n is the turn ratio of the transformer, VDC and Vo
resonant and the magnetizing current of the transformer,
are the input and output DC voltage, respectively. From
and the current flowing through the diodes of the output
the circuit of figure 4b, the DC values of VDC and Vo can
rectifier.
be substituted with the RMS values:
When the switching frequency is equal to fo, as soon as
Q1 is turned off, the resonant current equals the
magnetizing current, there is no power transfer to the load, (4)
and with a suitable delay of Q2 turn on, the ZVS condition ⁄
can be achieved. When the switching frequency is below
fo, the ZVS can still be achieved together with a soft Finally the gain can be calculated:
commutation of the diodes D1 and D2 occurring at zero
current. Since these diodes operate in discontinuous mode,
a higher current will circulate in the resonant circuit to

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 The transfer function Mg can be drawn versus frequency
( ) with Ln and Qe as parameters.
| | (5)
( )
5. Design of the LLC resonant converter
Eq. (4) gives the output voltage by the knowledge of Mg,
n, and Vin. A. Design constraints
The constraints for the converter design are the
following:

 Input voltage: (300-320 VDC);

 Rated power: 225 W;
 Output voltage range (3-5 V);
 Maximum output current: 45 A (in
correspondence of 5V of voltage output;
 Output Voltage line regulation  1% (Vin=320
V);
 Output voltage ripple  120 mV:
 Switching frequency (100-150kHz).

The input voltage is supposed as delivered by a full-wave

rectifier supplied by a single-phase grid; it corresponds to
about 300-320 VDC. The rated power is provided at a
current of 45 A when the voltage is 5V. A small output of
the voltage ripple is required to preserve the electrolyzer;
for this reason, the switching frequency is chosen higher
than 100 kHz; besides, it allows a suitable high-
frequency transformer to be adopted. It should be
underlined that the load is modelled as a purely resistive
one; the complete model shown in [27] would require the
Fig. 4. a) equivalent circuit of the LLC converter, b) FHA
dynamic behaviour as well; however, since it influences
circuit model of the LLC converter
only transients, the steady-state analysis can be
performed satisfactorily with the simplified approach.
It is more convenient to adopt normalized quantities to
describe eq. (5) considering: fn as the ratio between the
B. Choice of the components
witching and the resonant frequency, Ln as the ratio
The design has been performed by the steps described in
between the magnetizing and resonant inductance, and a
[18]. The following parameters are chosen: Ln=5 and
quality factor Qe.
Qe=0.35, it guarantees a good linear regulation interval.
With these parameters, the gain curve shown in figure 5
has been obtained. It can be noted that the gain decreases
(6) linearly with the frequency in the operating interval 110-
150 kHz. The resonance frequency is set equal to 130
kHz. The adopted switching frequency also makes easier
(7) the filtering design to avoid EMI [29].

Voltage gain (Ln=5)

3
√ ⁄ Qe=0.35
(8)
2.5 Qe=0.2
Qe=0.5

2
In this way, eq. (5) becomes:
gain Mg

1.5

(9)
| | 1
[( ) ] [( ) ]
0.5
And the output voltage is given by:
0 -1 0 1
10 10 10
(10) normalized frequency f/fo

Fig. 5. Normalized gain of the converter vs, frequency

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The list of the adopted components is given in table 1. It kHz, respectively. Figure 6 shows the input current (top
should be noted that the output capacitor has been obtained view) and the output voltage (bottom view). It can be
by a parallel connection to reduce the ESR and the related noted that the output voltage ranges from 4.5 V to 2.64 V
losses. The high frequency transformer is wounded on the with a ripple of about 1%. Figure 7 shows the current
specified core to obtain the requested reduction ratio. through the diodes of the rectifier I(D2), I(D3) (top
view), and the resonant current Ir with the magnetizing
Table 1: list of the components current Im (bottom view). All currents decrease
Rated increasing the switching frequency as expected. It can be
Symbol Supplier Code appreciated the soft commutation of the diodes occurring
value
MOSFET 650V, at zero current as shown by the zoom of the same
5.5A
Infineon IPP65R420CFD currents of figure 8 also above the resonant frequency.
(x2)
Diode 0.79V, Finally, figure 9 shows the drain-source voltage of the
IXYS DSA70C200HB
(x2) 70A MOSFET Q2 (top view) and the voltage applied to the
2100LL-390- gate of the MOSFETs (bottom view) where it can be
Lr 39 H Bourns
RC noted that the dead time assures the ZVS commutation.
WCAP-FTXX The dynamic behaviour of the converter has been verified
Cr 38 nF Wurth
Film Capacitor by a step variation of the control frequency. Figure 10
C1006-X5R-
Co (x9) 100 F KEMET and 11 shows the output voltage when a step variation
SMD
Transformer 19:1:1 TDK-Epcos PQ35/35 core from 140 kHz to 120 kHz and vice versa is imposed to
VCO LT LTC6990 the control frequency. In any case, the converter shows a
Driver LT LT1162 overdamped behaviour as required; this lack of
overvoltage due to oscillations is important to preserve
6. Results the electrolyzer.
Results are obtained by LTspice simulator; they show the
behaviour of the converter at 110 kHz, 130 kHz and 150

Fig. 6. Input current (top view) and output voltage (bottom view)

Fig. 7. Current through the rectifier diodes (top view) and resonant with magnetizing current (bottom view)

Fig. 8. Zoom of figure 7 to show the soft commutation of the diodes

Fig. 9.Drain-to-Source voltage of the MOSFET Q2 (top view) and gate voltage (bottom view)

https://doi.org/10.24084/repqj19.317 456 RE&PQJ, Volume No.19, September 2021

Besides, since the dynamic response can be approximated efficiency %
70
by a dominant pole, the feedback performed by a PI
regulator will be able to maintain the overdamped
response.
65
The efficiency of the converter has been calculated
considering switching and conduction losses on the two
MOSFETs, conduction losses on Diodes, Joule losses on
inductor Lr, capacitor Cr and capacitor Co, joule and 60
magnetic losses in the transformers (this last contribution
in negligible). Losses are shown in figure 12 versus the
output power. Finally, the overall efficiency vs. the output 55
power is shown in figure 13. It can be noted that a relevant
amount of losses is due to the conduction losses of the
diodes that are subjected to high currents. A further 50
50 100 150 200
optimization could be performing by a synchronous Output power [W]
rectifier; it would allow to halve these losses and to raise
the efficiency up to about 75% at rated power. Fig. 13. Efficiency vs. output power of the converter.

7. Conclusion
A LLC resonant converter has been designed to supply a
PEM electrolyzer. The converter allows a high voltage
reduction ratio minimizing the overall stress of the
MOSFETs. It also guarantees the voltage regulation in
the operating range of the electrolyzer, a reduced output
voltage ripple and an overdamped dynamic response.
This topology allows minimizing losses switching and
Fig. 10. Output voltage with a step variation of the input reverse recovery losses; the efficiency is reduced mainly
frequency from 140 kHz to 120 kHz. by conduction losses on the rectifier due to the high
output current.

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