System Design and Modeling of a High Temperature PEM Fuel Cell Operated with Ammonia as a Fuel

Giovanni Cinti,Simon Lennart Sahlin,Vincenzo Liso,Samuel Simon Araya

doi:10.3390/en13184689

Giovanni Cinti, Simon Lennart Sahlin + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/en13184689

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Journal: Energies	Publication Date: Sep 9, 2020
Citations: 6	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Perugia, Aalborg University

Abstract

Ammonia is a hydrogen-rich compound that can play an important role in the storage of green hydrogen and the deployment of fuel cell technologies. Nowadays used as a fertilizer, NH3 has the right peculiarities to be a successful sustainable fuel for the future of the energy sector. This study presents, for the first time in literature, an integration study of ammonia as a hydrogen carrier and a high temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (HT-PEMFC) as an energy conversion device. A system design is presented, that integrates a reactor for the decomposition of ammonia with an HT-PEMFC, where hydrogen produced from NH3 is electrochemically converted into electricity and heat. The overall system based on the two technologies is designed integrating all balance of plant components. A zero-dimensional model was implemented to evaluate system efficiency and study the effects of parametric variations. Thermal equilibrium of the decomposition reactor was studied, and two different strategies were implemented in the model to guarantee thermal energy balance inside the system. The results show that the designed system can operate with an efficiency of 40.1% based on ammonia lower heating value (LHV) at the fuel cell operating point of 0.35 A/cm2 and 0.60 V.

Highlights

Due to its versatility, hydrogen has been recently gaining traction as energy storage solution.Even though it can be produced from a variety of energy sources, its most attractive feature is the possibility of producing it from renewable energy resources and using it in various applications, either directly or after converting it into other chemical products both for energy consumption and further chemical processing.Hydrogen is converted into electrical energy with high efficiencies in fuel cells
This study presents, for the first time in literature, an integration study of ammonia as a hydrogen carrier and a high temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (HT-polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC)) as an energy conversion device
The results show that the designed system can operate with an efficiency of 40.1% based on ammonia lower heating value (LHV) at the fuel cell operating point of 0.35 A/cm2 and 0.60 V

Summary

Introduction

Hydrogen has been recently gaining traction as energy storage solution.Even though it can be produced from a variety of energy sources, its most attractive feature is the possibility of producing it from renewable energy resources and using it in various applications, either directly or after converting it into other chemical products both for energy consumption and further chemical processing.Hydrogen is converted into electrical energy with high efficiencies in fuel cells. Hydrogen has been recently gaining traction as energy storage solution. At ambient conditions (25 ◦ C and 1 bar), hydrogen has low density of only 0.0813 g L−1 , which requires either a high pressure storage, e.g., 700 bar for automotive application, which increases the density to 40 g L−1 and the corresponding volumetric energy density of 5.6 MJ L−1 , or liquid state storage, for many practical applications [1,2]. In both cases, hydrogen undergoes thermodynamic transformations, which can increase the overall storage and transportation costs significantly. Hydrogen can be stored in carbon nanotubes, metallic hydrides, or complex hydrides under more moderate temperature and pressure conditions, but with only limited gravimetric density [2,3]

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