Operational Analysis of a Proton-Conducting Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cell for Synthetic Fuel Production

Abstract

Abstract Methane and methanol as synthetic fuels can be produced from synthesis gas or syngas. A proton-conducting solid oxide electrolysis cell (H-SOEC) becomes a promising technology that can produce syngas from the co-electrolysis of steam and CO 2 . In this work, the synthetic fuel production from syngas produced by a H-SOEC was modelled and simulated through Aspen Plus simulation software. The composition of syngas and synthetic fuel were calculated by using the minimization of Gibbs free energy. Firstly, the steam to CO 2 (S/C) molar ratio in feed was determined to satisty the suitable stoichiometric number of each fuel. Further, the H-SOEC operating temperature was optimized. The simulation showed that at operation of H-SOEC as 650 °C and 1 atm, the optimal S/C molar ratio for methane and methanol productions is 4.69 and 3.52, respectively. Then, the effect of operation in fuel production was examined. The results indicated that methane flowrate of 0.2 kmol/h can be provided when reactor operates at 250 °C and 3 atm. For methanol production, 0.13 kmol/h of methanol can be generated at reactor operation as 250 °C and 80 atm. In addition, it was found that the methane production does not release CO and CO 2 to nature. Therefore, it can be concluded that the integrated system of H-SOEC and methane production is more attractive feature.