A novel hybrid liquefied natural gas process with absorption refrigeration integrated with molten carbonate fuel cell

Mehdi Mehrpooya, Parimah Bahramian, Fathollah Pourfayaz, Hadi Katooli and Mostafa Delpisheh

International Journal of Low-Carbon Technologies, 2021, vol. 16, issue 3, 956-976

Abstract: The production of liquefied natural gas (LNG) is a high energy-consuming process. The study of ways to reduce energy consumption and consequently to reduce operational costs is imperative. Toward this purpose, this study proposes a hybrid system adopting a mixed refrigerant for the liquefaction of natural gas that is precooled with an ammonia/water absorption refrigeration (AR) cycle utilizing the exhaust heat of a molten carbonate fuel cell, 700°C and 2.74 bar, coupled with a gas turbine and a bottoming Brayton super-critical carbon dioxide cycle. The inauguration of the ammonia/water AR cycle to the LNG process increases the cooling load of the cycle by 10%, providing a 28.3-MW cooling load duty while having a 0.45 coefficient of performance. Employing the hybrid system reduces energy consumption, attaining 85% overall thermal efficiency, 53% electrical efficiency and 35% fuel cell efficiency. The hybrid system produces 6300 kg.mol.h−1 of LNG and 146.55 MW of electrical power. Thereafter, exergy and sensitivity analyses are implemented and, accordingly, the fuel cell had an 83% share of the exergy destruction and the whole system obtained a 95% exergy efficiency.

Keywords: LNG production; dual mixed refrigerant; absorption refrigeration; molten carbonate fuel cell; super-critical carbon dioxide cycle; hybrid system (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:ijlctc:v:16:y:2021:i:3:p:956-976.

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