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The manuscript was received on 7 May 2007 and was accepted after revision for publication on 23 November 2007.
DOI: 10.1243/09576509JPE472
Abstract: Conventional recuperative micro gas turbines have a 30 per cent low heating value
(LHV) maximum efficiency at full load. Therefore, if they are to be used in a potential distributed
energy scenario, solutions must be developed that increase efficiency. An innovative gas
turbine-based technology is the fuel cell – gas turbine hybrid system. This work is aimed at
studying how the basic performance of a conventional Brayton cycle changes when heat
addition is done at a fuel cell. Two layouts are considered: a direct system where the compressor
feeds the fuel cell directly and an indirect system where only heat is transferred between
subsystems.
Direct and indirect systems have been studied at full and part load, concluding that the
efficiency versus pressure ratio curves of hybrid systems change substantially with respect to
a traditional gas turbine; part-load efficiency hardly decreases.
Maximum efficiency of hybrid systems doubles the efficiency of state of the art micro gas tur-
bine and remains high at part load. Furthermore, the benefit of a certain increase in tempera-
ture is higher for hybrid systems than for conventional engines.
Finally, a simple economic analysis shows that the total installation and operation/mainten-
ance costs of hybrid systems make them competitive against conventional gas turbines.
JPE472 # IMechE 2008 Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy
150 D Sánchez, R Chacartegui, T Sánchez, J Martı́nez, and F Rosa
composed of high temperature fuel cells and micro- with the protons to form water. Water joins the
gas turbines are being considered for distributed anodic gas and is exhausted from the cell.
power applications. Recent analyses of this kind of A flow of electrons is established from the anode to
hybrid systems report efficiencies over 60 per cent the cathode through an external circuit, i.e. electrical
LHV [2]. load. This electric current is coupled to a voltage
A lot of research in the analysis of fuel cell – gas tur- difference between electrodes, which appears as a
bine hybrid systems has been done in recent years, consequence of the reaction taking place in the cell.
covering different types of fuel cells and a number It can be ideally described by the Nernst equation,
of integration schemes, and conclusions have been equation (2)
drawn about the capabilities of this sort of devices.
!
However, although many different system layouts Rg T pH2 p1=2
O2
have been presented in these works, most studies E ¼ E0 þ ln ð2Þ
ne F pH2 O
concentrate in a particular integration sketch, usually
neglecting other layouts, and have developed a
full set of characteristics curves which describe the E is the Nernst or ideal potential established between
performance of the system under different working electrodes and it depends only on temperature and
conditions, either at full or part load. composition as shown in equation (2). E0 is the stan-
The present work covers the fundamentals of inte- dard potential which is the potential at reference con-
grating a solid oxide fuel cell and a micro gas turbine. ditions. The power developed by the cell is the
An analysis is made about the impact of modifying a product of voltage and electric current
basic recuperative gas turbine cycle with a fuel cell for
the external heat addition process. Optimal pressure Wideal ¼ E I ð3Þ
ratio, cell temperature, and other parameters are
studied in order to establish a maximum efficiency Regrettably, not all this power Wideal is useful due to
for each of the systems considered. After this basic irreversibilities arising in the process described
thermodynamic study, a comparison of part-load above. In fact, a voltage drop DV takes place. There-
behaviour is done and conclusions are drawn about fore, the real work produced by the cell is
which of the systems is more convenient for different
working environments.
Wreal ¼ ðE DV Þ I ð4Þ
A brief description of the model used is presented –
a full description of the model is out of the scope of
this work – and, later, the three systems considered There are three contributors to the voltage drop:
in the analysis are described. To complete this techni- ohmic losses, activation losses, and concentration
cal study, a simplified economic analysis of installa- losses; these losses are usually called polarizations.
tion and operation costs of the systems presented is The ohmic polarization is caused by the resistance
included. Conclusions are written in the final section. to the flow of electric current in electrodes and elec-
trolyte and it can be easily described by the following
equation
2 DESCRIPTION OF THE FUEL CELL MODEL
DVohm ¼ Z I ð5Þ
Fuel cells are devices where hydrogen is oxidized to
water electrochemically, i.e. no combustion takes Z is the equivalent resistance of the cell. It depends
place, in a strongly exothermic reaction (Dhf ¼ mainly on materials and temperature through the
2242 kJ/mol), equation (1) electronic/ionic resistivity and, secondarily, on the
cell internal configuration, i.e. planar, tubular,
1 mixed. The calculation of Z is not complex although
H2 þ O2 ! H2 O ð1Þ
2 it involves very large equations which are not of inter-
est for this work. Readers who wish to know the pro-
A hydrogen stream enters the anode where hydro- cess to evaluate the ohmic polarization are referred to
gen molecules are dissociated into protons at the reference [3].
anodic surface. These protons migrate through the Activation losses are related to the need to over-
electrode towards the contact surface between anode come the activation energy of the half reactions
and electrolyte, usually called three-phase layer, taking place at each anode. They depend on
where the oxidation takes place. At the same time, materials, temperature, composition, and intensity.
an oxygen stream feeds the cathode. At this electrode, The calculation of the activation loss is more com-
oxygen ions are formed which migrate through the plex than the previous one and it involves evaluating
electrolyte to the three-phase layer where they react some necessary material properties, which is not an
Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy JPE472 # IMechE 2008
Comparison between conventional recuperative gas turbine and hybrid SOFC–GT systems 151
easy task. Therefore, simplified methods are used to large piston engines, and a very vast supply network
predict activation losses, Tafel equations being the is already available at almost any site where a
most common. Equation (6) shows the aspect of a power plant is set. In addition, the process where
Tafel line relating current intensity and voltage drop hydrogen is formed from natural gas, mainly
methane, is well known in heavy industries and its
DVact ¼ a þ b lnð jÞ ð6Þ application to fuel cells is therefore easy.
When dealing with natural gas, it is quite usual to
However, using Tafel equations can lead to a not assume that it is formed exclusively by methane. If
negligible error at low current densities, up to longer chained hydrocarbons appear, they are con-
20 per cent, so, for the present work, a more general verted to equivalent methane. Thus, the following
equation has been used. This expression is derived reforming process is considered to take place inside
from a general Butler Volmer equation after assuming the cell
the commonly accepted hypothesis of symmetric
transfer coefficients equal to 0.5 [4] CH4 þ H2 O ! 3H2 þ CO ð8Þ
Rg T j0 Equation (8) is called the reforming reaction and is
DVact ¼ sinh1 ð7Þ
F 2j strongly endothermic (Dhf ¼ 206 kJ/mol). In addition,
the following water–gas shift reaction occurs, which
Equation (7) is applicable to both anode and cath- is slightly exothermic (Dhf ¼ 241 kJ/mol)
ode as j0, which stands for the so called exchange cur-
rent density, is different for each of them. The sum of CO þ H2 O ! H2 þ CO2 ð9Þ
the activation loss at both electrodes is the total acti-
vation loss. As deduced from equations (8) and (9), hydrogen is
A more detailed analysis of the method to calculate obtained from methane if water is present. To guar-
activation losses and the hypotheses made to obtain antee the presence of water and avoid undesirable
equation (7) is given in reference [4]. reactions that would form atomic carbon and block
Concentration losses are related to the velocity at the catalyst, part of the gases exhausting the anode
which species diffuse through the porous electrodes is recirculated and joins the raw fuel. This exhaust
and are consumed at the active sites where the oxi- stream contains up to 50 per cent (vol) of water
dation reaction takes place. Its calculation is there- coming from the oxidation of hydrogen.
fore related to the capacity of feeding the reaction Recirculating exhaust gases not only supplies water
with hydrogen and oxygen at a high enough rate. If but also promote the endothermic reforming reac-
the concentration of any of the species reacting tion. Note that the exhaust gases are at a very high
were too low or if their rate of reaction were too temperature and can be used as a heat source for
high or if they diffused slowly, the concentration the reforming process, which is favoured by high
losses would increase. However, this type of polariz- temperatures.
ation is very low compared with the previous ones; Despite this, not all the methane feeding the cell
in fact, one order of magnitude smaller. Thus, most can be reformed inside it. If pure methane entered
authors dismiss the concentration polarization and the anode, the endothermic behaviour of the reform-
only consider ohmic and activation losses. This has ing process, which is not balanced by the exothermi-
been done in the present work. city of both hydrogen oxidation and shift reactions,
would cause a strong decrease in temperature. In
this situation, high stresses would appear in the
3 FUEL CONDITIONING elements of the cell which would eventually deterio-
rate its performance noticeably and, eventually,
3.1 Prereforming break it. Thus, a prereforming reactor is placed
outside the cell in order to have part of the methane
Up to now, hydrogen has been considered to be the
reformed before entering it. This prereforming reac-
only component of the fuel stream feeding the
tor is considered to be adiabatic and both reactions,
anode. This is not usual. Hydrogen is not found as a
reforming and shift, are supposed to reach chemical
free gas in nature and it has to be obtained as a pro-
equilibrium at its exit. The equilibrium constant of
duct from an industrial process.
both reactions is related to the temperature at
There are several techniques to produce hydrogen
which equilibrium is reached and it can be obtained
from other compounds such as water, natural gas or
from the following equation
other and all of them imply a waste of energy.
Among these, natural gas is extensively used as fuel
for power producers, such as gas turbines or even log kp;i ¼ aT 4 þ bT 3 þ cT 2 þ dT þ e ð10Þ
JPE472 # IMechE 2008 Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy
152 D Sánchez, R Chacartegui, T Sánchez, J Martı́nez, and F Rosa
where T is temperature in K and kp,i stands for the fuel utilization factor
equilibrium constant of both reactions
nH2 ; oxidized nH2 ; oxidized
Uf ¼ ¼
p3 pCO n3 nCO p 2 nH2 ; supplied 3 nCH4 þ nCO þ nH2 raw fuel
kp;ref ¼ H2 ¼ H2 ð11Þ
pCH4 pH2 O nCH4 nH2 O ntot ð14Þ
Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy JPE472 # IMechE 2008
Comparison between conventional recuperative gas turbine and hybrid SOFC–GT systems 153
JPE472 # IMechE 2008 Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy
154 D Sánchez, R Chacartegui, T Sánchez, J Martı́nez, and F Rosa
Fig. 4 Characteristic curves of a compressor-turbine Fig. 5 Useful work versus pressure ratio for a
coupling conventional recuperative gas turbine
Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy JPE472 # IMechE 2008
Comparison between conventional recuperative gas turbine and hybrid SOFC–GT systems 155
Fig. 8 Efficiency versus pressure ratio for a direct Fig. 9 Efficiency versus pressure ratio for an indirect
hybrid system hybrid system
JPE472 # IMechE 2008 Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy
156 D Sánchez, R Chacartegui, T Sánchez, J Martı́nez, and F Rosa
Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy JPE472 # IMechE 2008
Comparison between conventional recuperative gas turbine and hybrid SOFC–GT systems 157
Fig. 11 Installation cost versus rated power Fig. 12 Total cost versus operating hours
JPE472 # IMechE 2008 Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy
158 D Sánchez, R Chacartegui, T Sánchez, J Martı́nez, and F Rosa
account for derated operation. It can be assumed 9. The initial investment or installation cost of a
therefore that hybrid systems are competitive techni- hybrid system is around two times higher than
cally and economically as long as reliability problems a conventional gas turbine engine of the same
that are currently affecting them are solved. rated power. However, when operation and
maintenance costs are included, the total cost
of a fuel-cell-based plant is lower in the mid –
direct hybrid systems – or long term – indirect
8 CONCLUSIONS
hybrid systems.
10. Increasing the load factor shortens the compen-
Hybrid systems are not a new concept for the scienti-
sation period needed for the hybrid system to
fic community. Studies have been done on inte-
be more interesting economically than a recuper-
gration layouts and pilot plants are running with
ated gas turbine.
highly satisfactory performance [2]. However, a
mature technology has still to be developed, even Readers might find contradictory the last conclusion.
though these systems enter a commercial phase. Reducing the current density increases efficiency but,
Despite this, hybrid systems are frequently studied at the same time, increases substantially the active
from the fuel cell perspective. The cell is considered area, i.e. number of cells in the stack, which is
as a power system which is overcharged by means needed to generate the same power. From an econ-
of a turbocharger which, in addition, generates a omical perspective, it is more interesting to reduce
small amount of power. Thus, the global efficiency the installation cost of the system, i.e. cell area,
is increased by around 15 points. although operating cost increases due to a lower
The work presented here adopts a new perspective. efficiency.
The gas turbine user considers the hybrid system as a
gas turbine engine where the combustion chamber
has been substituted by a fuel cell. It is expected ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
that such a system performs similarly to a conven-
tional gas turbine with some deviations which must The authors wish to acknowledge the Spanish
be identified. This work is aimed at finding the differ- National Institute for Aerospace Technology (INTA)
ences between three different concepts of small scale for funding this research project.
gas turbines by applying the principles of traditional
gas turbine theory.
The following particular conclusions are drawn.
REFERENCES
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2. However, for small scale applications, particu- 2 Veyo, S. E., Shockling, A., Dederer, J. T., Gillett, J. E., and
larly distributed generation, hybrid systems are Lundberg, W. L. Tubular solid oxide fuel cell/gas turbine
much more efficient than state of the art conven- hybrid cycle power systems status. J. Eng. Gas Turbines
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Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy JPE472 # IMechE 2008
Comparison between conventional recuperative gas turbine and hybrid SOFC–GT systems 159
JPE472 # IMechE 2008 Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy