Thermodynamic simulation of biomass gas steam reforming for a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) system

Abstract

-This paper presents a methodology to simulate a small-scale fuel cell system for power generation using biomass gas as fuel. The methodology encompasses the thermodynamic and electrochemical aspects of a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), as well as solves the problem of chemical equilibrium in complex systems. In this case the complex system is the internal reforming of biomass gas to produce hydrogen. The fuel cell input variables are: operational voltage, cell power output, composition of the biomass gas reforming, thermodynamic efficiency, electrochemical efficiency, practical efficiency, the First and Second law efficiencies for the whole system. The chemical compositions, molar flows and temperatures are presented to each point of the system as well as the exergetic efficiency. For a molar water/carbon ratio of 2, the thermodynamic simulation of the biomass gas reforming indicates the maximum hydrogen production at a temperature of 1070 K, which can vary as a function of the biomass gas composition. The comparison with the efficiency of simple gas turbine cycle and regenerative gas turbine cycle shows the superiority of SOFC for the considered electrical power range.

Energy and exergy analysis of a sugar cane bagasse gasifier integrated to a solid oxide fuel cell based on a quasi-equilibrium approach

“…The effect of hydrogen partial pressure on electrical efficiency of a similar system was reported by Sordi et al [17].…”

“…Most of the works are based on thermodynamic predictions with a limited report of regression against experimental data [5][6][7]9,10,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19], some of them do not consider tars removal, heat losses and/or no detailed description of the cell is included. Main results of the most recent reports are summarized in Table 1.…”

“…Furthermore, the concept of exergy applied to gasification -fuel cells energy production processes has been used by Sordi et al [17,18] who addressed exergetic and energetic analysis of hydrogen production from biomass gasification to feed high and low temperature fuel cells. The study included the conversion of CH 4 and CO as well as a PSA system for gas cleaning.…”

Comparación entre Soluciones Numéricas de un Modelo Matemático de Combustión Teórica y Variación de la Conductividad del Cuesco de Palma en un Reactor de Lecho Fijo

“…En la literatura se reporta desde el empleo de metodologías experimentales (Moreno et al, 2009;Melgar et al, 2009;Mehdi et al, 2015;Yepez et al, 2012;Ahumada et al, 2016) como el trabajo desarrollado por Ahumada et al (2016) de estudios experimentales realizados para un proceso de microgasificación a fin de encontrar correlaciones entre variables que afectaran el poder calorífico del gas de síntesis obtenido del proceso, desarrollo de modelos de transferencia de calor y exergéticos (Mendoza et al, 2012), planteamientos teóricos desarrollados para estudiar un proceso específico de conversión termoquímica (Perez et al, 2010), como es el caso de la gasificación de biomasa mediante la aplicación de técnicas de optimización y modelos de predicción por redes neuronales basados en datos del proceso propiamente dicho desarrollado por Obviedo et al (2014), por ejemplo, hasta simulaciones numéricas como una aproximación al fenómeno (Chen et al, 2000;Chen et al, 2001;Sordi et al, 2009;Qingluan et al, 2015), y es quizá esta ultima la herramienta más utilizada después de las metodologías experimentales.…”

Integration of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell in a sugar–ethanol factory: analysis of the efficiency and the environmental profile of the products

“…The exergy tool has been used in the evaluation of SOFC running on biomass gasification gasses and ethanol Sordi & Da Silva, 2009). Casas et al (2010 determined the effect of operational variables on the exergy efficiency and irreversibilities of an ethanol fueled solid oxide fuel cell system.…”