A hybrid micro gas turbine and solid state fuel cell power plant with hydrogen production and CO2 capture

Policies in both industrialized and developing countries are modifying to reach a better perspective of utilizing renewable energies. Besides, methods that could combine traditional power generation plants with energy conversion efficient technologies are mostly encouraged. In this paper, a novel power plant design which uses a hybrid system of solid state fuel cell and micro turbine gas are assessed for power generation with capturing CO2 and a three-reactors chemical looping for hydrogen generation (TRCL) from natural gas using three reactors. The generated hydrogen then is used as fuel in a solid state fuel cell. Produced gas from solid state fuel cells (SOFC) contains non-reacted hydrogen which is fueled to a micro gas turbine. Energy analyses show advantage of using hybrid system in specific conditions when efficiency can reach up to 51.4% for lower heating values. On the other hand, another interesting feature of the introduced hybrid system is on the gain of 100% CO2 capturing at comparable high energy efficiency. These features like zero CO2 emission and high energy efficiency make the power plant performance noteworthy. Influence of parameters such as SOFC temperature, system pressure, utilization factor and CO2 expander exhaust pressure are investigated. (C) 2016 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.