Energy Efficiency Analysis in an Integrated Biomass Gasification Fuel Cell System

Abstract

Biomass gasification for power generation has received considerable attention as a partial substitute for fossil fuels power generation. Gasification is the incomplete combustion that converts a carbon-contain feedstock into syngas including hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, water and other gaseous hydrocarbons. To increase power efficiency, fuel cell is one of the most suitable ways to combine with biomass gasification especially solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC). SOFC is considered as the most encouraging fuel cell type due to its high power generation efficiency and long term stability. Therefore, to obtain higher energy efficiency, gasification process should be operated with highly efficient power generation as SOFC. The combined cycle is called integrated biomass gasification fuel cell (BGFC) system. Furthermore, to measure a system performance, energy analysis should be evaluated. In this study, Aspen plus 7.2 is used to perform an integrated biomass gasification fuel cell system with rice straw feedstock for power generation. The results show that at the optimal operating condition, the electricity production is 1395.61kW with 69.38% total energy (combined heat and power) efficiency.