The publication “Feasibility of the integration of a Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell System and an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle” by Paolo Greppi, Barbara Bosio and Elisabetta Arato has been published in International Journal of Hydrogen Energy Volume 34, Issue 20, October 2009, Pages 8664-8669.

Preprint is available here .

The final publication can be downloaded from the journal here .

Abstract:

IGCC (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) power plants look promising for the environmentally-friendly, large-scale production of electrical energy from low-cost fossil feedstocks such as coal or refinery residues.

In IGCC plants hydrogen is an intermediate product, as a syngas component, between the thermochemical section and the power section, which is a conventional combined cycle modified to handle this low-density fuel.

Replacing the conventional power section with a fuel cell, the IGFC (Integrated Gasification Fuel Cell) configuration promises lower emissions, higher efficiency and possibility to scale down to smaller sizes.

To explore the challenges and the feasibility of such an integration we have proposed putting a pilot-scale fuel cell system into operation within an existing, conventional IGCC, creating a hybrid fuel-cell-IGCC. Two innovative configurations have been proposed and optimized for a pilot-scale MCFC-GT (Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell – Gas Turbine) system, based on a typical syngas for IGCC plants such as that in operation at ISAB Energy Srl. The system has been modeled using the LIBPF process simulation library.