Thermodynamic Performance of a High Efficient Power Plant Based on Faecal Biomass Gasification, Solid Oxide Fuel Cells and Micro Steam Turbine

Abstract

Affordable sanitation around the world with the recovery of valuable energy and clean water from faecal biomass in an off-grid system is a challenge. A novel small scale combined heat and power (CHP) toilet system concept has been optimized which generate power very efficiently and produce clean water. The system combines a dryer, a plasma gasifier, and a gas cleaning unit with an ambient pressure solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) stack and a micro steam turbine (MST). The gasifier uses additional heat supplied from the combustion of stack depleted fuel. With this concept, syngas with high heating value can be produced which can be efficiently converted in a SOFC system. This is reflected by the net electrical efficiency of the integrated system configuration of the order of 40%. Additional power is produced combining it with an MST and an efficiency increase of the order of 20% is achieved.