4E Study and Best Performance Analysis of a Hydrogen Multi-Generation Layout by Waste Energy Recovery of Combined SOFC-GT-ORC

Mohammad Zoghi (), Nasser Hosseinzadeh, Saleh Gharaie and Ali Zare ()
Additional contact information
Mohammad Zoghi: School of Engineering, Deakin University, Geelong, VIC 3216, Australia
Nasser Hosseinzadeh: School of Engineering, Deakin University, Geelong, VIC 3216, Australia
Saleh Gharaie: School of Engineering, Deakin University, Geelong, VIC 3216, Australia
Ali Zare: School of Engineering, Deakin University, Geelong, VIC 3216, Australia

Energies, 2024, vol. 17, issue 11, 1-22

Abstract: Different approaches have been suggested for the waste heat recovery of high-temperature exhausted gas of a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC). In such systems, mostly gas turbine (GT) and organic Rankine cycle (ORC) are added as bottoming systems to the SOFC (Configuration 1). However, the SOFC-GT-ORC has a considerable amount of waste energy which can be recovered. In the present research, the waste energy of ORC in the heat rejection stage and the residual exhausted gas of the system were recovered by a thermoelectric generator (TEG) and a hot water unit, respectively. Then, the extra produced power in the TEG was directed to a proton exchange membrane electrolyzer and a reverse osmosis desalination unit (RODU) for hydrogen and potable water outputs. The performance of SOFC-GT, Configuration 1, and Configuration 2 was compared through a 4E (energy, exergy, exergy-economic, and environmental) analysis. In the best performance point, the exergy efficiency and unit cost of product (UCOP) of SOFC-GT were obtained as 69.41% and USD 26.53/GJ. The exergy efficiency increased by 2.56% and 2.86%, and the UCOP rose by 0.45% and 12.25% in Configurations 1 and 2. So, the overall performance of Configuration 1 was acceptable and Configuration 2 led to the highest exergy efficiency, while its economic performance was not competitive because of the high investment cost of RODU.

Keywords: solid oxide fuel cell; organic Rankine cycle; multi-generation; performance comparison; 4E study (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/11/2791/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/11/2791/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:17:y:2024:i:11:p:2791-:d:1410073

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().