Novel Heat Integration in a Methane Reformer and High Temperature PEM Fuel Cell-based mCHP System

A highly integrated and optimized heat recovery system is essential for efficient operation of a HTPEM fuel cell-based mCHP system. The main challenge with such system is to design energy efficient systems with low start-up time. Recent studies have shown that this can be achieved by proper heat integration of the balance of plant (BOP) components. This study proposed a novel scheme that optimally integrated the sub-components of a mCHP system consisting of a 2 kWel HTPEM fuel cell integrated with methane processing units, for recovery and use of the process and waste heat. A steady state system modeling and simulation of the complete mCHP system was implemented in Aspen Plus v7.2. The design of the heat recovery system was achieved with pinch analysis techniques. Heat integration results show that external cooling utility is not required and result in a 5% increase in the overall system efficiency