Proposal of a high‐performance solid oxide fuel cell combined power generation system with carbon dioxide recovery

A new fossil‐fuel‐utilized high‐performance combined power generation system with liquefaction recovery of carbon dioxide is proposed. In the system, pure oxygen is used as the oxidant gas to prevent the mixture of nitrogen in the exhaust gas and to make the liquefaction recovery of carbon dioxide possible. Solid oxide fuel cell is selected as the topping cycle. The exhaust fuel gas of the solid oxide fuel cell is afterburned with its exhaust oxidant gas of pure oxygen and the heat of the combustion gas is utilized in the bottoming cycle. Nonequilibrium MHD/noble gas turbine cycle is selected as the bottoming cycle because the temperature of the combustion gas reaches about 2300 K. It is made clear through detailed examination of energy balance that the total thermal efficiency of the system using natural gas (methane) as the fuel reaches 63.24% (HHV) or 70.18% (LHV). This efficiency is very high as for the system with carbon dioxide recovery. The proposed system, therefore, has excellent performance, and further research and development is warranted. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 143(4): 12–21, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/eej.10146