Performance Comparison of Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell Hybrid Systems Minimizing Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Received 5 January, 2017 Revised 10 January, 2017 Accepted 28 February, 2017 Abstract >> Interests in fuel cell based power generation systems are on the steady rise owing to various advantages such as high efficiency, ultra low emission, and potential to achieve a very high efficiency by a synergistic combination with conventional heat engines. In this study, the performance of a hybrid system which combined a molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) and an indirectly fired micro gas turbine adopting carbon dioxide capture technologies was predicted. Commercialized 2.5 MW class MCFC system was used as the based system so that the result of this study could reflect practicality. Three types of ambient pressure hybrid systems were devised: one adopting post-combustion capture and two adopting oxy-combustion capture. One of the oxy-combustion based system is configured as a semi-closed type, while the other is an open cycle type. The post-combustion based system exhibited higher net power output and efficiency than the oxy-combustion based systems. However, the semi-closed system using oxy-combustion has the advantage of capturing almost all carbon dioxide.