FP6 - SES6-2004-503122 GREEN FUEL CELLS - SOFC Fuel cell fueled by biomass gasification gas

Contacts




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Process Engineering : Sustainable Development and Renewable Energy : Thermochemical Conversion : Wood (Lignocellulose)

Type of Project	STREP
Contract No	FP6 - SES6-2004-503122
Total Cost	5,168 KEuro
EC Contribution	2,999 KEuro
Start Date	1-9-2004
Duration	36 Months

Abstract

Electricity consumption is increasing in most countries within and particularly outside the European Union. In order to meet this demand and at the same time fulfil the objectives to reduce the emission of green house gasses, a sustainable technology with a high fuel to electricity efficiency must be developed. Electricity production by SOFC fuel cells is one road to obtain a high efficiency in electricity production. To make this road green and sustainable it is essential that the fuel for the fuel cells is produced from renewable energy sources.

One sustainable fuel for SOFC fuel cells is hydrogen rich gas produced by gasification of biomass. For biomass gasification-SOFC fuel cell conversion systems the most cost-effective size is expected to be plants from 1 to 30 MWe. For these plants, the total electric efficiency is expected to be well above 50%.

The main barriers are: Staged fixed-bed gasification producing a very clean gas cannot be up-scaled to more than 5 MWth. The output gas from all other gasification systems without extensive and expensive gas cleaning systems is still to dirty to be fed into SOFC fuel cells. The price of SOFC fuel cells is still very high due to the technology's immature state and the lack of economies of scale. In order to overcome the first barrier, the objective of this project is to develop up scalable tar cleaning technologies based on char beds integrated into staged gasoliers.

One char bed with bed material and one char bed with out bed material will be built and tested. The advantages of the two designs will be evaluated and compared. By implementing this technology gasoliers can produce a gas that can meet the requirements for fuel for SOFC fuel cells through reliable, up scalable and cost-effective staged gasification of biomass. The requirement of the gas quality for an SOFC fuel cell will be determined. Experiments with material from SOFC will be conducted to set up fuel cell specifications.

In addition long term testing of two complete integrated gasification-fuel cell stacks plants will be carried out using woody biomass. Other investigations will look at tar formation and decomposition as well as behaviour and removal of inorganics.

Coordinator

Centre de Cooperation Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement, France

Partners

• TK Energi A/S, Denmark
• Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands, Netherlands
• Technical University of Denmark, BGG, Denmark
• Commisariat à l'Energie Atomique, France
• FORCE Technology, Denmark
• Institute of Chemical Technology, Czech Republic
• Riso National Laboratory, Denmark

Contacts

Contact

• Philippe GIRARD / CIRAD FORET FRANCE