Effect of gasification agent on the performance of solid oxide fuel cell and biomass gasification systems

In this paper, an integrated solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) and biomass gasification system is modeled to study the effect of gasification agent (air, enriched oxygen and steam) on its performance. In the present modeling, a heat transfer model for SOFC and thermodynamic models for the rest of the components are used. In addition, exergy balances are written for the system components. The results show that using steam as the gasification agent yields the highest electrical efficiency (41.8%), power-to-heat ratio (4.649), and exergetic efficiency (39.1%), but the lowest fuel utilization efficiency (50.8%). In addition, the exergy destruction is found to be the highest at the gasifier for the air and enriched oxygen gasification cases and the heat exchanger that supplies heat to the air entering the SOFC for the steam gasification case.