Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
1758021 | Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering | 2014 | 13 Pages |
•Using solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) system is proposed for flare gas recovery as a new approach.•An electrochemical model is developed by considering the direct internal methane steam reforming.•Parametric analysis of the SOFC performance is done.•Environmental considerations and economic evaluations are carried out.
Flare gas emission is one of the main sources of environmental pollution and global warming. Implementations of some no flaring methods have a great impact in reducing the pollutants emission. Using solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) system is a new approach which is proposed in this study. In this work, an electrochemical model is developed for a steady-state, planar SOFC by considering the direct internal methane steam reforming. In this new configuration, there is no pre-reforming and the sweetened flare gas is fed to SOFC directly. Also a part of required steam is supplied by recycling the anode outlet gas. The present model is validated with experimental and modeling data taken from the literature. Application of SOFC technology for flare gas recovery of Asalouyeh gas processing plant not only generates about 1200 MW electrical energy, but also it decreases the equivalent mass of greenhouse gas emission from 1700 kg/s to 68 kg/s. Economical evaluations show that the total capital investment of this method is significantly lower than other no gas flaring approaches. For parametric investigation, the effects of some related parameters such as temperature, recirculation, fuel utilization and air ratios are studied. The results show that increasing the operating temperature of SOFC enhances the cell voltage and maximum power density. Decreasing the recirculation ratio from 0.6 to 0.2 increases the electrical efficiency of the cell. Although at lower current densities, changing the recirculation ratio has no significant effect, it is observed that at average current density equals to 1.5 A/cm2, increasing the recirculation ratio from 0.2 to 0.6 decreases the power density from 0.51 W/cm2 to 0.48 W/cm2. Also increasing the fuel utilization ratio improves the cell performance.