Energy Integration and Analysis of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Based Microcombined Heat and Power Systems and Other Renewable Systems Using Biomass Waste Derived Syngas

Abstract

The objective of this paper was to design energy integrated solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) based microcombined heat and power (micro-CHP) systems using syngas derived from lignocellulosic biomass waste.The novel contributions of this work include 1) integration of syngas between a community-scale biomass gasification plant and SOFC based micro-CHP systems in buildings; 2) heat integrated designs of SOFC based micro-CHP systems; 3) integration between SOFC and other heat-led renewable technologies, such as, syngas boilers, ground source heat pump (GSHP) and air source heat pump (ASHP). Conceptual process design frameworks including detailed heat recovery strategies were developed using Aspen plus.It is demonstrated that increases in heat integration between the SOFC inlet and outlet gases enhance the power-to-heat generation ratio from the SOFC albeit at a higher cost of heat exchanger area. A straw (14.6 MJ/kg LHV) based community-scale gasification plant can generate 50-100 kW e of electricity at an overall CHP generation efficiency of ~42%, while if integrated to SOFC based micro-CHP systems (1 kW e ) in individual dwellings via syngas, the overall energy efficiency can be greatly enhanced to ~85%. It is envisaged that the SOFC should be operated at the highest electrical efficiency based on optimal heat integration, however, this needs to be coupled to other heat-led renewable technologies in order to meet the high residential heat to power demand ratio in the UK. Around 2.2 times more syngas may be required in boilers for supplementing residential heating. In integration with a GSHP loop, the flue gas from SOFC can itself be used as a refrigerant and energy integration between the two systems can achieve an overall efficiency of ~90%.

A critical review of integration analysis of microbial electrosynthesis (MES) systems with waste biorefineries for the production of biofuel and chemical from reuse of CO 2

“…Although there have already been a number of papers published on substrates [36,40] and microorganisms [41,42] and electrode material selections [17], most have focused on design point performance evaluation (or a particular experimental set up) rather than optimisation of design and operations and modelling for systematic integration with industrial flowsheets and scale-up. Systems modelling combined with thermodynamic correlations can be a valuable tool to predict multi-component physico-chemical behaviour, providing indications of technical feasibility, identifying ways to improve efficiency and determining the best configuration and conditions for inherently integrated MES for resource recovery from waste within biorefinery systems [43,44,45]. This paper makes several novel contributions.…”

Distributed and micro-generation from biogas and agricultural application of sewage sludge: Comparative environmental performance analysis using life cycle approaches

“…There are economic incentives in sewage sludge utilisation for distributed and microgeneration of combined heat and power (CHP), following the introduction of Feed-In-Tariff (FIT) scheme in the UK [1][2][3]. The distributed systems at community scale are meant to generate few hundred kilowatts to few megawatts of electricity, while the household microgeneration systems are designed to produce 1-4 kilowatts of electricity [2].…”

Thermochemical Equilibrium Model of Synthetic Natural Gas Production from Coal Gasification Using Aspen Plus

“…(ii) The sulfur contained in the coal is assumed to be converted mainly into H 2 S and COS. The low amounts of chlorine suggest that the chlorinated species formed are only traces of HCl and Cl 2 ; and (iii) the assumption that only NH 3 forms and not oxides of nitrogen are produced has already been made by other researchers [44].…”

“…Therefore, the coal stream needs to be hypothetically decomposed in reactive compounds, that is, its corresponding constituents (such as C, H 2 , N 2 , O 2 , S, Cl 2 , and H 2 O), based on its proximate analysis and ultimate analysis. This is performed in a yield reactor (RYIELD block, Figure 4) [41,[43][44][45][46]. The yield distribution for this reactor has been specified by FORTRAN statements in a calculator block [47].…”