Energy Analysis of Ethanol Steam Reforming Integrated Solid Oxide Fuel Cell for Electrical Power Generation

Abstract:

As Thailand is importantly an agricultural country driving the bio-ethanol production from agricultural feedstock via fermentation process and a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) has been known as an attractive energy conversion device due to its high efficiency and fuel flexibility, SOFC fueled by ethanol for electrical power generation has been performed. Hydrogen-rich gas from ethanol steam reforming is used as fuel carrier converting to generate electrical energy in SOFC. This paper presents an energy analysis of integrated steam reformer and SOFC system to determine the suitable ethanol concentration giving the optimum SOFC electrical efficiency. In this study, the ethanol concentrations between 20 and 56 %wt corresponding to water-to-ethanol ratios from 10 to 2 were varied at a fixed feed flow rate of 1 g/s of ethanol solution for hydrogen production. The SOFC power efficiency increased although the amount of hydrogen and SOFC electrical power decreased with decreasing the ethanol concentration. However, for the first law analysis, the heat load of each unit was calculated and it can be concluded that the overall system efficiency increased with increasing the ethanol concentration.

• Periodical: Applied Mechanics and Materials (Volumes 799-800)
• Pages: 100-104
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.799-800.100
• Online since: October 2015
• Authors: Nawadee Srisiriwat
• Keywords: Energy Analysis, Ethanol, Power Generation, Solid Oxide Fuel Cell, Steam Reformer

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