Ecologic and sustainable objective thermodynamic evaluation of molten carbonate fuel cell–supercritical CO 2 Brayton cycle hybrid system

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (9) ◽  
pp. 6272-6280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emin Açıkkalp
Author(s):  
Mehdi Mehrpooya ◽  
Parimah Bahramian ◽  
Fathollah Pourfayaz ◽  
Hadi Katooli ◽  
Mostafa Delpisheh

Abstract The production of liquefied natural gas (LNG) is a high energy-consuming process. The study of ways to reduce energy consumption and consequently to reduce operational costs is imperative. Toward this purpose, this study proposes a hybrid system adopting a mixed refrigerant for the liquefaction of natural gas that is precooled with an ammonia/water absorption refrigeration (AR) cycle utilizing the exhaust heat of a molten carbonate fuel cell, 700°C and 2.74 bar, coupled with a gas turbine and a bottoming Brayton super-critical carbon dioxide cycle. The inauguration of the ammonia/water AR cycle to the LNG process increases the cooling load of the cycle by 10%, providing a 28.3-MW cooling load duty while having a 0.45 coefficient of performance. Employing the hybrid system reduces energy consumption, attaining 85% overall thermal efficiency, 53% electrical efficiency and 35% fuel cell efficiency. The hybrid system produces 6300 kg.mol.h−1 of LNG and 146.55 MW of electrical power. Thereafter, exergy and sensitivity analyses are implemented and, accordingly, the fuel cell had an 83% share of the exergy destruction and the whole system obtained a 95% exergy efficiency.


Author(s):  
Ji Ho Ahn ◽  
Tong Seop Kim

Owing to the increasing consumption of fossil fuels and emission of greenhouse gases, interests in highly efficient and low carbon emitting power systems are growing fast. Several research groups have been suggesting advanced systems based on fuel cells and have also been applying carbon capture and storage technology to satisfy the demand for clean energy. In this study, the performance of a hybrid system, which is a combination of a molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) with oxy-combustion carbon capture and an indirectly fired micro gas turbine (MGT) was predicted. A 2.5MW MCFC system that is used in commercial applications was used as the reference system so that the results of the study could be applicable to practical situations. The ambient pressure type hybrid system was modeled by referring to the design parameters of an MGT that is currently being developed. A semi-closed type design characterized by flow recirculation was adopted for this hybrid system. A part of the recirculating gas is converted into liquefied carbon dioxide and captured for storage at the carbon separation unit. Almost 100% carbon dioxide capture is possible with this system. In these systems, the output power of the fuel cell is larger than in the normal hybrid system without carbon capture because the partial pressure of carbon dioxide increases. The increased cell power partially compensates for the power loss due to the carbon capture and MGT power reduction. The dependence of net system efficiency of the oxy-hybrid on compressor pressure ratio is marginal, especially beyond an optimal value.


Author(s):  
Ji Ho Ahn ◽  
Tong Seop Kim

Owing to the increasing consumption of fossil fuels and emission of greenhouse gases, interests in highly efficient and low carbon emitting power systems are growing fast. Several research groups have been suggesting advanced systems based on fuel cells and have also been applying carbon capture and storage technology to satisfy the demand for clean energy. In this study, the performance of a hybrid system, which is a combination of a molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) with oxy-combustion carbon capture and an indirectly fired micro gas turbine (MGT), was predicted. A 2.5 MW MCFC system that is used in commercial applications was used as the reference system so that the results of the study could be applied to practical situations. The ambient pressure type hybrid system was modeled by referring to the design parameters of an MGT that is currently being developed. A semi-closed type design characterized by flow recirculation was adopted for this hybrid system. A part of the recirculating gas is converted into liquefied carbon dioxide and captured for storage at the carbon separation unit (CSU). Almost 100% carbon dioxide capture is possible with this system. In these systems, the output power of the fuel cell is larger than in the normal hybrid system without carbon capture because the partial pressure of carbon dioxide increases. The increased cell power partially compensates for the power loss due to the carbon capture and MGT power reduction. The dependence of net system efficiency of the oxy-hybrid on compressor pressure ratio is marginal, especially beyond an optimal value.


Author(s):  
Ji Ho Ahn ◽  
Ji Hun Jeong ◽  
Tong Seop Kim

The demand for clean energy continues to increase as the human society becomes more aware of environmental challenges such as global warming. Various power systems based on high-temperature fuel cells have been proposed, especially hybrid systems combining a fuel cell with a gas turbine, and research on carbon capture and storage technology to prevent the emission of greenhouse gases is already underway. This study suggests a new method to innovatively enhance the efficiency of a molten carbonate fuel cell/micro gas turbine hybrid system including carbon capture. The key technology adopted to improve the net cycle efficiency is off-gas recirculation. The hybrid system incorporating oxy-combustion capture was devised, and its performance was compared with that of a post-combustion system based on a hybrid system. A molten carbonate fuel cell system based on a commercial unit was modeled. Externally supplied water for reforming was not needed as a result of the presence of the water vapor in the recirculated anode off-gas. The analyses confirmed that the thermal efficiencies of all the systems (MCFC stand-alone, hybrid, hybrid with oxy-combustion capture, hybrid with post-combustion capture) were significantly improved by introducing the off-gas recirculation. In particular, the largest efficiency improvement was observed for the oxy-combustion hybrid system. Its efficiency is over 57% and is even higher than that of the post-combustion hybrid system.


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