Carbonate Fuel Cell System Development for Industrial Cogeneration

摘要

A survey of various industries was performed to investigate the feasibility of using natural gas-fueled carbonate fuel cell power plants as a cogeneration heat and power source. Two applications were selected: chlorine/caustic soda and aluminum. Three fuel processor technologies, conventional steam reforming, autothermal reforming and an advanced steam reformer concept were used to define three thermodynamic cycle concepts for each of the two applications. Performance and economic studies were conducted for the resulting systems. The advanced steam reformer was found among those studied to be most attractive and was evaluated further and compared to internally reforming the fuel within the fuel cell anodes. From the results of the studies it was concluded that the issues most affecting gas-fired carbonate fuel cell power plant commercial introduction are fuel cell and stack development, fuel reformer technology and the development of reliable, cost-effective heat transfer equipment.