Thermodynamic analysis of small-scale polygeneration systems producing natural gas, electricity, heat, and carbon dioxide from biomass

Abstract

Agricultural greenhouses are still heavily dependent on fossil fuel-based products despite the abundant residual biomass at their disposal. This paper presents two novel decentralized systems that can convert biomass simultaneously into synthetic natural gas (SNG), electricity, useful heat, and a CO2-rich stream. To do so, the electricity and H2/O2 production features of reversible solid oxide cells (RSOCs) are exploited. A steam dual fluidized bed (DFB) gasifier is used in the first proposed system, while the second one adopts a simpler oxygen/steam-blown downdraft gasification approach. Thermodynamic simulations using Aspen Plus software reveal that the total polygeneration process efficiency could reach 86.6%, with a CO2 generation capacity exceeding 275g per kilogram of biomass input. If not used inside the greenhouse atmosphere to enhance crop growth, this high-purity CO2 stream could be sequestered/liquefied to render the process carbon negative. The flexibility of the polygeneration systems is investigated through parametric analysis, where maximum SNG efficiencies that are on par with large-scale plants are obtained. The possibility of storing surplus electricity from intermittent sources as chemical energy in SNG is also highlighted.