Off-design operation of coal power plant integrated with natural gas fueled molten carbonate fuel cell as CO2 reducer

• MCFC is evaluated for carbon capture purpose downstream a thermoelectric coal plant.
• Main advantages are additional power generation, reduced CO2 emissions and higher system efficiency.
• Coal plants are ideal candidates to retrofit with MCFCs due to the high exhaust CO2 content and to the low cost of fuel.
• The experimental results show that MCFC could reduce CO2 emissions by 90% with over 30% electric efficiency.

The paper presents an experimental investigation of a Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell (MCFC) fueled by methane in order to predict how to reduce CO2 emissions from the flue gas of a real power plant. MCFCs can be placed in the flue gas stream of a fossil fired power plant to separate CO2 by transferring it from the cathode side to the anode side. As a result, a mixture of CO2 and H2O is separated from which pure CO2 can be obtained through condensation of water. The main advantages of this solution are: additional power generation, reduced CO2 emissions and higher system efficiency. Furthermore, coal plants seem to be the ideal candidate to retrofit with MCFC plant due to their high exhaust CO2 content and to the low cost of the fuel that encourages its application despite the narrower emission requirement. The experimental results show that use of an MCFC could reduce CO2 emissions by 90% with over 30% efficiency in additional power generation and by demonstrating a broad range of different operative conditions.