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Efficiency analysis of a combined PEFC and bioethanol‐solar‐reforming system for individual houses
Author(s) -
Obara Shin'ya
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
international journal of energy research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.808
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1099-114X
pISSN - 0363-907X
DOI - 10.1002/er.1574
Subject(s) - biofuel , environmental science , electricity , renewable energy , thermal , electricity generation , waste management , hydrogen production , radiation , meteorology , nuclear engineering , process engineering , environmental engineering , engineering , power (physics) , chemistry , hydrogen , thermodynamics , electrical engineering , physics , quantum mechanics , organic chemistry
In this research, the development of a bioethanol reforming system for fuel cells (FBSR: fuel cell with bioethanol steam reforming) using sunlight as a heat source was investigated. The system was investigated using the experimental result of catalyst performance, and numerical analysis. If ethanol purity is high, the production method of the bioethanol used for the proposal system will not be limited. The overall efficiency of the production of electricity and heat power of this system was determined by examining its thermal output characteristic. The FBSR was introduced into standard individual houses in Sapporo, Japan, for analysis. The amount of hydrogen production, the production‐of‐electricity characteristic, and the thermal output characteristic were examined using meteorological data on representative days in March and August. Compared with the representative day in March (28.0 MJ day −1 ), the solar radiation of the representative day in August (37.0 MJ day −1 ) is large. However, the amount of solar radiation fluctuation of the representative day in August in this analysis is large compared with the representative day in March. It depends for the overall efficiency of the system on the amount of solar radiation fluctuation rather than the amount of solar radiation. As a result, the overall efficiency of the system, defined as the rate of power and heat output compared with the amount of solar heat collected, was calculated to be 47.4 and 41.9% on the representative days in March and August, respectively. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.