Which methane-fueled fuel cell is of superior performance in CCHP applications; solid oxide or molten carbonate?

Fuel ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 312 ◽  
pp. 122936
Author(s):  
Shahriyar Ghazanfari Holagh ◽  
Maghsoud Abdollahi Haghghi ◽  
Ata Chitsaz
Author(s):  
Anthony Nickens ◽  
Donald Hoffman ◽  
Mark Cervi ◽  
Edward House

The U.S. Navy Ship Service Fuel Cell (SSFC) program is approaching the testing phase of the 625 KW molten carbonate ship service fuel cell generator. Testing is scheduled to occur in fiscal year 2005. The objective of the SSFC program is to develop diesel fueled shipboard fuel cell power systems with optimized performance characteristics (cost, weight, volume, and efficiency) which, when considered in the total ship environment, provide superior performance at a competitive cost compared to traditional shipboard generators. Emphasis has been placed on adapting commercially developed fuel cell technology to meet Navy/Marine requirements including operation in a salt-laden air, reforming and purification of naval logistics fuel, ship motion, shock and vibration. Fuel Cell Energy Inc., under an ONR contract. is adapting its commercial direct carbonate fuel cell technology for use with naval logistics fuels to provide power suitable for ship application. This paper provides a description of the fuel cell system and details of the installation and planned operation of the unit at the Philadelphia test site.


Author(s):  
Stefano Campanari ◽  
Ennio Macchi

High temperature fuel cells are experiencing an increasing amount of attention thanks to the successful operation of prototype plants, including a multi-MW Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell (MCFC) demonstration plant and a hybrid Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) gas turbine power plant. Both MCFCs and SOFCs are currently considered attractive for the integration with gas turbines in more complex “hybrid” plants, with projected performances that largely exceed combined cycles efficiencies even at a small-scale size and with an extremely low environmental impact. This paper compares the performances of MCFC and SOFC hybrid cycles. The comparison shows some advantages for the SOFC hybrid cycle in terms of plant simplicity and moderately higher efficiency.


Author(s):  
Randall S. Gemmen ◽  
Eric Liese ◽  
Jose G. Rivera ◽  
Faryar Jabbari ◽  
Jacob Brouwer

This paper describes some generic solid oxide and molten carbonate hybrid fuel cell gas turbine systems and dynamic modeling tools that are being developed to simulate the performance of these and other hybrid fuel cell systems. The generic hybrid systems are presented to introduce issues and technical development challenges that hybrid fuel cell gas turbine systems must address and to provide a platform for the development of the dynamic modeling tools. The present goals are to develop dynamic models for the basic components of solid oxide and molten carbonate fuel cell gas turbine hybrids, ensure their reliability, and obtain a basic understanding of their performance prior to integration into a complete hybrid system model. Preliminary results for molten carbonate and solid oxide fuel cell types are presented. These results provide understanding of some of the operational characteristics of fuel cells, and indicate the complexity of the dynamic response of fuel cell hybrid components. For the fuel cell models, generic planar designs are analyzed showing voltage and current behavior following step changes in load resistance and steady state performance curves. The results provide confidence in each of the model’s reliability, enabling them to be integrated for hybrid system simulation. Results from the integrated simulations will provide guidance on future hybrid technology development needs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Utkarsh Shikhar ◽  
Kas Hemmes ◽  
Theo Woudstra

Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that are conventionally used to convert the chemical energy of fuels into electricity while producing heat as a byproduct. High temperature fuel cells such as molten carbonate fuel cells and solid oxide fuel cells produce significant amounts of heat that can be used for internal reforming of fuels such as natural gas to produce gas mixtures which are rich in hydrogen, while also producing electricity. This opens up the possibility of using high temperature fuel cells in systems designed for flexible coproduction of hydrogen and power at very high system efficiency. In a previous study, the flowsheet software Cycle-Tempo has been used to determine the technical feasibility of a solid oxide fuel cell system for flexible coproduction of hydrogen and power by running the system at different fuel utilization factors (between 60 and 95%). Lower utilization factors correspond to higher hydrogen production while at a higher fuel utilization, standard fuel cell operation is achieved. This study uses the same basis to investigate how a system with molten carbonate fuel cells performs in identical conditions also using Cycle-Tempo. A comparison is made with the results from the solid oxide fuel cell study.


Author(s):  
D. Sánchez ◽  
R. Chacartegui ◽  
F. Jiménez-Espadafor ◽  
T. Sánchez

Hybrid power systems based on high temperature fuel cells are a promising technology for the forthcoming distributed power generation market. For the most extended configuration, these systems comprise a fuel cell and a conventional recuperative gas turbine engine bottoming cycle, which recovers waste heat from the cell exhaust and converts it into useful work. The ability of these gas turbines to produce useful work relies strongly on a high fuel cell operating temperature. Thus, if molten carbonate fuel cells or the new generation intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cells are used, the efficiency and power capacity of the hybrid system decrease dramatically. In this work, carbon dioxide is proposed as the working fluid for a closed supercritical bottoming cycle, which is expected to perform better for intermediate temperature heat recovery applications than the air cycle. Elementary fuel cell lumped-volume models for both solid oxide and molten carbonate are used in conjunction with a Brayton cycle thermodynamic simulator capable of working with open/closed and air/carbon dioxide systems. This paper shows that, even though the new cycle is coupled with an atmospheric fuel cell, it is still able to achieve the same overall system efficiency and rated power than the best conventional cycles being currently considered. Furthermore, under certain operating conditions, the performance of the new hybrid systems beats that of existing pressurized fuel cell hybrid systems with conventional gas turbines. From the results, it is concluded that the supercritical carbon dioxide bottoming cycle holds a very high potential as an efficient power generator for hybrid systems. However, costs and balance of plant analysis will have to be carried out in the future to check its feasibility.


2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 932-942 ◽  
Author(s):  
Prathak Jienkulsawad ◽  
Dang Saebea ◽  
Yaneeporn Patcharavorachot ◽  
Soorathep Kheawhom ◽  
Amornchai Arpornwichanop

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