Effects of fuel processing methods on industrial scale biogas-fuelled solid oxide fuel cell system for operating in wastewater treatment plants

Abstract

The performance of three solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) systems, fuelled by biogas produced through anaerobic digestion (AD) process, for heat and electricity generation in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is studied. Each system has a different fuel processing method to prevent carbon deposition over the anode catalyst under biogas fuelling. Anode gas recirculation (AGR), steam reforming (SR), and partial oxidation (POX) are the methods employed in systems I-III, respectively. A planar SOFC stack used in these systems is based on the anode-supported cells with Ni-YSZ anode, YSZ electrolyte and YSZ-LSM cathode, operated at 800• C. A computer code has been developed for the simulation of the planar SOFC in cell, stack and system levels and applied for the performance prediction of the SOFC systems. The key operational parameters affecting the performance of the SOFC systems are identified. The effect of these parameters on the electrical and CHP efficiencies, the generated electricity and heat, the total exergy destruction, and the number of cells in SOFC stack of the systems are studied. The results show that among the SOFC systems investigated in this study, the AGR and SR fuel processor-based systems with electrical efficiency of 45.1% and 43%, respectively, are suitable to be applied in WWTPs. If the entire biogas produced in a WWTP is used in the AGR or SR fuel processor-based SOFC system, the electricity and heat required to operate the WWTP can be completely self-supplied and the extra electricity generated can be sold to the electrical grid.Crown

Oxidative Dry‐Reforming of Biogas: Reactor Design and SOFC System Integration

“…In other publications on biogas-fueled SOFC systems the compositions were in most cases in the region of x CH 4 = 0.65 and x CO 2 = 0.35. [19,27,30,46] As Figure 5 shows, for this composition not only c is lower but also q. This means that the reformer needs less heat for isothermal operation.…”

“…[18] The use of synthetic or real biogas in SOFCs has not only been modeled in numerous publications, [19][20][21][22][23][24][25] but has also been investigated in experimental studies. [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] Most research work has been done with internal reforming systems.…”

Short contact time catalytic partial oxidation of biogas – A comprehensive study on CO2 and N2 dilution

“…Another study using actual biogas gives ranges of 58e70% for methane, 30e43% for carbon dioxide, and 1.2e7.1% nitrogen [13]. Given the large variability in actual biogas as well as the surrogates used to investigate biogas, the concentrations used herein should accurately measure the effect of dilution taking both carbon dioxide and nitrogen into consideration.…”

Avaliação da produção de biogás de dejetos de suínos utilizando a metodologia de superfície de resposta

“…Esse processo proporciona o aproveitamento da biomassa para geração de energia (DINUCCIO et al, 2010), além de constituir-se em uma alternativa para o tratamento de resíduos, pois além de reduzir o potencial poluidor e os riscos sanitários dos dejetos ao mínimo, promove a geração de biogás (DONG et al, 2010;TEGHAMMAR et al, 2010), o qual pode ser utilizado como fonte de energia alternativa (FARHAD et al, 2010) e permite a reciclagem do efluente, podendo este ser usado como biofertilizante (ESPERANCINI et al, 2007).…”