OXIGENATED FUELS FOR MOLTEN CARBONATE FUEL CELLS

摘要

The development of hydrogen economy as world main sources of energy can be considered as the challenge for the next decades. A valid contribution to this policy will arrive from the development of fuel cell technologies. In this field, molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) represents one of the most flexible system for the production of electricity, because it can be directly supplied with different fuels including carbon monoxide, a very active poison for the Pt based catalysts used in low temperature fuel cells, that is easily converted to hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The use of MCFC makes possible a wide fuel diversification, traditionally based on the massive use of fossil hydrocarbons, with alternative fuels like oxygenated, that can be produced by vegetable fermentation or by synthesis processes. It remains to investigate the possibility of using different oxygenated (methanol, ethanol and DME) to supply MCFC. Thus, we analysed a theoretical use of DME, methanol and ethanol, as a feedstock for hydrogen production in the indirect internal reforming MCFC configuration. Product distributions have been compared for DME, ethanol and methanol steam reforming reactions. In this paper, we summarise, report the most significant results obtained from this comparative analysis and provide clear evaluations about the energetic suitability of each examined fuel.