Thermodynamic analysis of a CCHP system with hydrogen production process by methane reforming enhanced by solar-assisted chemical looping adsorption

Abstract

Combined cooling, heating and power (CCHP) systems integrated with renewable energy can greatly alleviate the fossil energy crisis and greenhouse effect. This work proposes a novel CCHP system, which consists of a solar-assisted sorption enhanced chemical looping steam methane reforming (SE-CL-SMR) hydrogen generation subsystem, a solid oxide fuel cell-gas turbine (SOFC-GT) subsystem, a dual-effect Li-Br absorption chiller/heat pump (DAC/H) subsystem, and a domestic hot water (DHW) subsystem. The impacts of the reformer temperature, pressure, the ratios of steam to carbon, calcium oxide to carbon, and nickel oxide to calcium oxide on the system’s methane conversion rate, hydrogen yield, hydrogen purity, and CO2 capture efficiency are also explored. While ensuring the hydrogen production effect and considering the lowest energy consumption, the optimal reforming temperature, reforming pressure, ratios of S/C, CaO/CH4 and NiO/CaO of the CCHP system are 560 °C, 1 atm, 3, 1 and 0.5, respectively. The system’s energy and exergy analysis is performed under the optimized operating condition. In comparison with the data of reference, the findings demonstrate that the system’s overall power generation efficiency is 53.23 %, the total energy utilization rate is 74.32 %, and the exergy efficiency is 52.87 %.