Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Using Municipal Solid Waste Directly as Fuel: Biomass, Resin, Plastic, and Food Waste

Abstract

Municipal solid waste has received significant attention in advanced waste treatment engineering. A recent trend emphasizing its significance is the utilization of waste as an energy source with high efficiency and low cost. This report describes a waste-to-energy fuel cell that uses biomass, resin, plastic, and food waste directly as fuels at a temperature of 800 °C. A Fe2O3 anode demonstrated the best catalytic effect for the anode reaction among various investigated transition-metal oxides. Fe2O3 was reduced to FeO by pyrolysis gases or solid fuel at the open-circuit voltage and was then gradually reoxidized to its initial oxidation state by anodic polarization. The gasification reaction of carbon with carbon dioxide, i.e., the Boudouard reaction, was substantially catalyzed during discharge of the cell. Cell performance was dependent on the quantity and type of solid fuel: polyethylene terephthalate provided the highest power density of 0.57 W cm–2, whereas lignin presented the highest energy density of 0.83 Wh g–1 (lignin). Two distinctive features of this fuel cell are that the organic components of the solid fuels are almost completely consumed by discharge of the cell and that solid fuels can be supplied in both batch and free-fall modes.