Thermodynamic analysis of a proton conducting SOFC integrated system fuelled by different renewable fuels

Abstract

This work proposes a power generation system consisting of steam reformer and SOFC–H+ fuelled by different types of fuel, i.e., ethanol, glycerol and biogas. The performance analysis of integrated system is performed based on thermodynamic calculation through Aspen Plus simulator. The total of the Gibbs free energy minimization is used to determine product composition at equilibrium. The electrochemical model not only considers all voltage losses but also includes the effect of current leakage as a result from the electrolyte used. Considering the operating condition of steam reformer, it is found that the gas product contains the highest amount of hydrogen without the carbon formation when reformer is operated at 973 K with steam to carbon ratio of 1. In addition, the simulation results show that the SOFC–H+ operated at 973 K and 1 A/cm2 can provide a suitable compromise between system performances and exhaust gas composition. The use of glycerol reformate has the highest cell and system efficiencies and fuel utilization compared to the others. In addition, the integrated system fuelled by glycerol can release low CO amount whereas there is more heat provided to the surrounding. Therefore, it can be concluded that glycerol is suitable renewable fuel for SOFC–H+ integrated system.