Converting waste into electric energy and carbon fixation through biosyngas-fueled SOFC hybrid system: A simulation study

Abstract

Converting waste biomass to fuel and coupling it with solid oxide fuel cell to generate electricity cheaply and efficiently is what researchers are pursuing to achieve carbon neutrality. Therefore, a novel scheme of biosyngas-fueled solid oxide fuel cell power generation integrated with carbon capture is proposed in this paper, fully converting woody biomass into syngas. Based on the mathematical modelling, this system is evaluated by multiple evaluation criterion, including thermodynamic, economic and environmental perspectives. The correctness and accuracy of the proposed model are validated against the published literature. The studies on the key operating parameters show that increasing the gasifying temperature can markedly improve the quality of syngas, while the improvement of steam to biomass ratio is not evident, and the conversion ratio of water gas shift reactor is crucial for carbon capture. Moreover, low current density and high fuel utilization ratio are preferable to the high-efficiency power generation of solid oxide fuel cell. After multi-objective optimization, the CO2 emission ratio and energy efficiency achieve 0.285 t/MWh (is the lowest among various schemes) and 52%, which proves that the proposed scheme is a highly-efficient and eco-friendly power generation system.