Current losses in a bipolar cell—an analysis of the Tafel regime

Abstract An analysis of leakage currents in bipolar systems is carried out, using an equivalent circuit approach. The resulting non-linear difference equations appropriate to the Tafel regime are solved by four different methods: 1. (a) piecewise linear method (PLM), 2. (b) iterative piecewise linear method (IPLM), 3. (c) Adomian decomposition method (ADM), 4. (d) Piecewise linear continuum (PLC). On the basis of the numerical analysis, it is seen that PLM is a good approximation, and IPLM as well as ADM converge rapidly to the true values. These results are also compared with a continuum version.