Abstract

AbstractEnergy and exergy performance of ammonia fuelled solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) integrated system in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is evaluated in this study. Ammonia can be recovered through a struvite precipitation process in the form of an ammonia‐water mixture (with 14 mol.% ammonia) and used as a carbon‐free fuel. A series of experiments has been conducted for SOFC single cell to evaluate the performance with different ammonia‐water mixture ratios. An ammonia‐SOFC system was modeled in Cycle Tempo for detailed thermodynamic analysis. The heat from the electrochemical reaction in the SOFC and catalytic combustion in an afterburner is used in the struvite decomposition process. However, the generated heat is not sufficient to meet the heat demand of the struvite decomposition reactor. To improve the sustainability of the system in terms of heat demand, the system can be integrated into a heat pump assisted distillation tower, meanwhile, the ammonia concentration of the fuel stream increases. Increasing the ammonia concentration to 90 mol.% increases the energy and exergy efficiencies of the SOFC system. The net energy efficiency of the integrated system with a heat pump assisted distillation tower is 39%, based on the LHV of the ammonia‐water mixture.

Highlights

  • To decrease the rate of greenhouse gas emissions, the usage of conventional energy resources should be replaced by alternative renewable sources

  • Inlet gas composition is supplied from gas bottles, and the flow rate and the ratio of the ammonia-water mixture are adjusted by using mass flow controllers (MFC) and the controlled evaporation and mixing (CEM) system

  • Ammonia water mixture with an ammonia concentration of 14 mol.% is used as a fuel for this model

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Summary

Introduction

To decrease the rate of greenhouse gas emissions, the usage of conventional energy resources should be replaced by alternative renewable sources. Raising the quality of discharge water and nutrient removal increases the energy costs of wastewater treatment, which is dominated by the conversion and elimination of nitrogen and phosphorus [4]. Excessive nitrogen decreases dissolved oxygen levels of the receiving waters and cause toxicity to the aquatic organisms. There are various techniques like nitrification and denitrification [11,12,13,14] to extract nitrogen from the wastewater stream and thereby return it to the atmosphere. Another method is to accumulate nitrogen in the form of ammonia and remove.

Ammonia Production with such a low concentration of ammonia is not a suitable
Precipitation Process
Ammonia-fuelled SOFC
Experimental
Ammonia Cracking
Experimental Approach
Ammonia in Comparison to Hydrogen
Ammonia-water Mixture
Thermodynamic Analysis and Modeling Approach
System Description
Model Description
Operating with Low Ammonia Concentration
Increasing Ammonia Concentration
Distillation Process
Heat Pump Assisted Distillation Tower
SOFC Operating with High Ammonia Concentration
Integrated System
Conclusions

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