Biogas Fuel Reforming for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

Murphy, Danielle M.; Richards, Amy E.; Colclasure, Andrew M.; Rosensteel, Wade A.; Sullivan, Neal P.

doi:10.1149/1.3570265

Cited by 11 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…In a typical biogas fuel cell, synthesized biogas with about 65% methane + 35% carbon dioxide is reformed over a rhodium catalyst supported on a porous alumina-foam support. Reforming methods used include steam reforming and catalytic partial oxidation which use oxygen in air or pure oxygen for oxidation (Murphy et al 2019).…”

Section: Internal Reforming Of Biogas In Fuel Cellsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fuel Cells Design, Operations and Applications

Barasa Kabeyi

2023

Proceedings of the International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management

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Fuel cells convert the chemical energy of in fuel mainly hydrogen efficiently to electricity without combustion. The process has significantly low emissions with water as the main product of the reaction compared to conventional equipment/techniques that are associate with greenhouse gas emissions. The three main parts of a fuel cell assemble are the anode, cathode, and electrolyte. A catalyst oxidizes fuel with ions travelling via the electrolyte. At the cathode ions are reunited with the electrons. It is the electrons produced at the cathode that generate electrons which make the electrical circuit. Fuel cells development partially focuses on optimization of catalytic the layer 0f the catalytic electrodes, and by reducing metal without appreciable loss of the fuel cell performance. For fuel cells, power supply is uninterrupted during fuel supply and the oxidant, unlike a battery which relies on stored energy and is affected by amount of reagent available. The theoretical efficiency fuel cells is about 90% while in thermal engines the efficiency is about 40% for optimum conditions. However, practical fuel cell efficiency is usually less than 60%. which is still significantly greater than efficiency of combustion engines. The fuel cells operate with continuous replenishment of the fuel, and the oxidant at active electrode area and with no need for recharging. The elements of a fuel cell are the electrode, an oxidant or an air electrode, and an electrolyte. Common fuel cells used are hydrogen, oxygen (H2, O 2 ), hydrazine (N 2 H 4 , O 2 ), carbon/coal (C, O 2 ) methane (CH 4 , O 2 ). Hydrogen-powered fuel cells emit only water with virtually no pollutant emissions. On the other hand, fuel cells powered by hydrocarbon-based fuels have the potential to Employing hydrocarbon-based fuel inevitably leads to CO 2 emission. Since fuel cells are not subject to the limitations of the Carnot cycle efficiency, fuel cells attain higher efficiency that can be more than twice the efficiency of internal combustion engines. The transport sector operates with fuel cells having efficiency of up to 65%, compared to 25% for internal combustion engines. Application of heat produced by in fuel cells reaction for in combined heat and power (CHP) systems, increases overall efficiency to over 85%. Although fuel cells have significantly higher conversion efficiency compared to the internal combustion engines or and gas turbines across their output power range making them ideal for a variety of applications ranging from mobile phones to large-scale power generation, their largescale adoption is limited by high cost and lower reliability. The key to sustainability of fuel cells revolves around the production of hydrogen, the efficiency and capacity factor of fuel cells relative to other renewable sources of energy as well as the size of the installation Key works: hydrogen fuel; fuel cell technology; sustainable energy; sustainable energy; renewable energy; electrolisers.

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Section: Internal Reforming Of Biogas In Fuel Cellsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fuel Cells Design, Operations and Applications

Barasa Kabeyi

2023

Proceedings of the International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management

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“…SOFCs' operation on biogas along with their potential utilization for biogas-CHP have been extensively studied, and the relevant research has been repeatedly reviewed [5,18]. The relevant research has focused on SOFCs' operating conditions [22], biogas pre-reforming [23], the impurities effect on the activity of the anode [24][25][26] and prototype testing [12,27,28], including the combined processes of artificial biogas desulfurization, pre-reforming and SOFC short stacks [29]. The CO 2 content of biogas is generally considered to assist the internal reforming of its CH 4 content within the SOFC's anode and to only slightly affect the SOFC's performance [9,19,27,30,31].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Economic Feasibility of Power/Heat Cogeneration by Biogas–Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) Integrated Systems

et al. 2022

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Based upon the thermodynamic simulation of a biogas-SOFC integrated process and the costing of its elements, the present work examines the economic feasibility of biogas-SOFCs for combined heat and power (CHP) generation, by the comparison of their economic performance against the conventional biogas-CHP with internal combustion engines (ICEs), under the same assumptions. As well as the issues of process scale and an SOFC’s cost, examined in the literature, the study brings up the determinative effects of: (i) the employed SOFC size, with respect to its operational point, as well as (ii) the feasibility criterion, on the feasibility assessment. Two plant capacities were examined (250 m3·h−1 and 750 m3·h−1 biogas production), and their feasibilities were assessed by the Internal Rate of Return (IRR), the Net Present Value (NPV) and the Pay Back Time (PBT) criteria. For SOFC costs at 1100 and 2000 EUR·kWel−1, foreseen in 2035 and 2030, respectively, SOFCs were found to increase investment (by 2.5–4.5 times, depending upon a plant’s capacity and the SOFC’s size) and power generation (by 13–57%, depending upon the SOFC’s size), the latter increasing revenues. SOFC-CHP exhibits considerably lower IRRs (5.3–13.4% for the small and 16.8–25.3% for the larger plant), compared to ICE-CHP (34.4%). Nonetheless, according to NPV that does not evaluate profitability as a return on investment, small scale biogas-SOFCs (NPVmax: EUR 3.07 M) can compete with biogas-ICE (NPV: EUR 3.42 M), for SOFCs sized to operate at 70% of the maximum power density (MPD) and with a SOFC cost of 1100 EUR·kWel−1, whereas for larger plants, SOFC-CHP can lead to considerably higher NPVs (EUR 12.5–21.0 M) compared to biogas-ICE (EUR 9.3 M). Nonetheless, PBTs are higher for SOFC-CHP (7.7–11.1 yr and 4.2–5.7 yr for the small and the large plant, respectively, compared to 2.3 yr and 3.1 yr for biogas-ICE) because the criterion suppresses the effect of SOFC-CHP-increased revenues to a time period shorter than the plant’s lifetime. Finally, the economics of SOFC-CHP are optimized for SOFCs sized to operate at 70–82.5% of their MPD, depending upon the SOFC cost and the feasibility criterion. Overall, the choice of the feasibility criterion and the size of the employed SOFC can drastically affect the economic evaluation of SOFC-CHP, whereas the feasibility criterion also determines the economically optimum size of the employed SOFC.

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“…Solid oxide fuel cells offer the opportunity of using biogas because of its fuel feasibility and high efficiency (6). However carbon deposition occurs in conventional nickel anode-based solid oxide fuel cells (5), which can be prevented by dry reforming (7), steam reforming (8)(9)(10), partial oxidation (2,(11)(12)(13), or anode off-gas recirculation (14)(15).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulated Biogas for Nickel-Based Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

Jiang

Cassidy

et al. 2014

ECS Trans.

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Biogas is composed of variable gases including hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur, with methane and carbon dioxide as the main components. The common ratio of methane to carbon dioxide is 60/40 in volume and this high amount of methane causes carbon deposition when biogas is used in solid oxide fuel cells. To prevent carbon deposition, dry reforming, steam reforming or partial oxidation is the common method. In this paper, a nickel cermet solid oxide fuel cell was investigated with a simulated biogas based on 63% CH4 and 37% CO2, which was obtained by presuming 80% fuel utilisation and 25% recirculation of anode gas. Supplied with a 30 ml/min of simulated biogas, the cell generated a maximum power density of 856 mW cm-2 at 850 °C. The cell ran stably at loads of 100 mA cm-2, 300 mA cm-2and 500 mA cm-2 over a period of 16 hours at each level.

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Biogas Fuel Reforming for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

Cited by 11 publications

References 12 publications

Fuel Cells Design, Operations and Applications

Fuel Cells Design, Operations and Applications

Economic Feasibility of Power/Heat Cogeneration by Biogas–Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) Integrated Systems

Simulated Biogas for Nickel-Based Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

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