System Design and Modeling of a High Temperature PEM Fuel Cell Operated with Ammonia as a Fuel

Ammonia is a hydrogen-rich compound that can play an important role in the storage of green hydrogen and the deployment of fuel cell technologies. Nowadays used as a fertilizer, NH(3)has the right peculiarities to be a successful sustainable fuel for the future of the energy sector. This study presents, for the first time in literature, an integration study of ammonia as a hydrogen carrier and a high temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (HT-PEMFC) as an energy conversion device. A system design is presented, that integrates a reactor for the decomposition of ammonia with an HT-PEMFC, where hydrogen produced from NH(3)is electrochemically converted into electricity and heat. The overall system based on the two technologies is designed integrating all balance of plant components. A zero-dimensional model was implemented to evaluate system efficiency and study the effects of parametric variations. Thermal equilibrium of the decomposition reactor was studied, and two different strategies were implemented in the model to guarantee thermal energy balance inside the system. The results show that the designed system can operate with an efficiency of 40.1% based on ammonia lower heating value (LHV) at the fuel cell operating point of 0.35 A/cm(2)and 0.60 V.