Sorbents for Bio-Fueled SOFCs

Unlike internal combustion engines, fuel cells operate with very high efficiency even at small scale, offering significant benefits to distributed combined heat and power (CHP) systems utilizing biowaste. However, effective utilization of biogas in a fuel cell requires removal of impurities such as sulfur and siloxanes. TDA Research Inc. (TDA) is developing a low-cost, high-capacity expendable sorbent that can remove both the H2S and organic sulfur species in biogas to the parts per billion (ppbv) levels. This sorbent bed operates downstream of a bulk desulfurization system as a polishing bed to provide an essentially sulfur-free gas to the fuel cell. The sorbent can also be modified so that it can remove contaminants such as siloxanes in a single step. TDA is carrying out field demonstrations of our integrated gas clean-up units and biofueled SOFCs. The results from the sorbent development for biogas and field demonstrations will be presented in the meeting.