Study on a new IGCC (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) system with CO2 capture by integrating MCFC (Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell)

•A new IGCC system integrating the MCFC to capture CO2 has been proposed.•The new system performance is compared with other different IGCC systems.•The effects of the key parameters on the system performances are investigated.•The economic performance of the new system is evaluated.•The new system still has a high efficiency after CO2 capture.

In this paper, a new Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) system with less CO2 emission by integrating a Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell (MCFC) to capture CO2 has been proposed. The performance of the new system is compared with other three systems: a conventional IGCC system without CO2 capture, an IGCC system with pre-combustion capture and an IGCC system with oxy-fuel combustion capture. In addition, the effects of the key parameters of MCFC such as CO2 utilization factor, fuel utilization factor and the operating temperature of MCFC on the new system performance have been analyzed and compared. The results show that when the CO2 capture rate is 88%, the efficiency of the new system is about 47.31%, 2.97% higher than that of the IGCC without CO2 capture, 10.45% higher than the IGCC system with pre-combustion CO2 capture, and 12.55% higher than the IGCC system with oxy-fuel combustion CO2 capture. Though the new system has an obvious superiority of thermal performance, its technical economic performance needs be improved with the technical development of MCFC. The research achievements will provide a new way for further study on CO2 capture from IGCC system with lower energy penalty.