Energy and economic performance of novel integrated gasifier fuel cell (IGFC) cycles with carbon capture

This work analyzes the efficiency and economic performance of different configurations of a coal-fed integrated gasification fuel cell (IGFC) plant with CO2 capture. Our analysis evaluates novel configurations, providing a detailed economic assessment for each case. The plants studied here are based on a pressurized solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) based power cycle integrated with a Shell coal gasifier. The design variations focus on syngas cleaning and pre-processing upstream of the SOFC power island. In particular, we have designed, simulated and optimized three main system configurations; two with a partial methanation process upstream of the SOFC ('TREMP' and 'HICOM' cases, respectively) and one without ('DIRECT' case). Depending on the specific plant layout, carbon capture is accomplished either before or after the SOFC power island, or both. The best performance, both thermodynamic and economic, was achieved by the HICOM case, whose coal-to-electricity conversion efficiency is similar to 55% (lower heating value, LHV, basis). Note that this paper is meant to supplant the preliminary results presented in Lanzini et al. (2012). (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.