STUDY OF A LOW-TEMPERATURE MICRO-COGENERATION SYSTEM WITH A

PROTON EXCHANGE MEMBRANE FUEL CELL FOR RESIDENTIAL USE

M. Gandiglio*, A. Lanzinia, M. Santarellia, P. Leonea, R. Borchiellinia
a
Politecnico di Torino, corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129, Torino, Italy
*
Corresponding author: marta.gandiglio@polito.it

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

This work deals with the analysis of a microcogeneration system for residential use based
on a 1 kW proton exchange membrane (PEM)
fuel cell. A detailed system analysis of the fuel
cell stack operating at an average temperature
of 62C full plant and the surrounding Balanceof-Plant (BoP) , including the gas processing
section and the heat recovery system, were
carried out. In particular the operation with
cogeneration was studied; low-grade waste
heat, mainly recovered from the PEM stack and
the burner exhaust can be used to feed a lowtemperature thermal user such as a radiant floor
heating system operating at ~30-40 C.
Natural gas (NG) is the designated fuel, which is
reformed, shifted and eventually purified to a
CO-free H2-rich stream prior to feeding the
stack. The heat required for the endothermic
steam-reforming reaction is provided by burning
NG with air; also, the anode exhaust of the PEM
(which still contains some H2) is co-fed to the
burner in order to reduce the amount of external
NG needed for the reformer. The burner gas
exhaust is cooled close to atmospheric
temperature by an auxiliary cooling loop
containing demineralized water. The reformate
(coming from the NG steam-reforming) is also
cooled, before entering the fuel cell, by the
same demi water loop that is connected to the
heat recovery loop providing heat to the lowtemperature residential utility. Notably, the
relatively low operating temperature of the PEM
well matches the thermal input required by a
residential floor heating system. The whole
micro-cogeneration system has been modelled
in term of mass and energy balances while
efficiency maps were obtained for a varying fuel
utilization and current density of the stack. The
maximum electrical efficiency achieved is
around 36% (AC, LHV), with a stack current of
20 A and a FU of 80%. The global efficiency
(that includes also heat recovery toward the
thermal utility) is above 75% for same stack
operating conditions.
Keywords:
micro-CHP,
PEM
fuel
cell,
cogeneration, system analysis.

This works has been carried out in the

framework of the Italian regional project, RESCOGEN, whose purpose is to study a lowtemperature fuel cell cogeneration system for
residential power generation and heating.
PEM fuel cells are well-known technology and
have been widely analysed in the past decades.
Previous works dealt about empirical models [1],
experimental analysis [2][3] or dynamic models
[4][5] of PEM fuel cells. In this paper the
purpose is focused on the whole plant in order
to have an integrated system simulation: this
choice is due to the difficulty in evaluating single
component operation outside of the context of
the entire system. Integrated system models
must include the PEMFC stack, the fuel
processing system, the cathode-humidification
and pre-heating, the cogeneration loop and all
the required BoP components.
Competition, brought about by deregulation of
the energy market in the UK, Europe and USA
has given birth to the concept of micro-CHP as a
potentially viable product in the residential and
light-commercial sector with the aim of using
novel products and technologies to provide a
reduction in cost of the energy service to the
consumer, improving customer retention and
reducing
emissions,
fuel
imports
and
greenhouse gas emissions and pollution.
The use of PEM fuel cells for residential use and
cogeneration plant has been studied, for
instance, by Barelli et al. who analysed domestic
systems [6] and carried out energy and exergy
analysis on simple hydrogen fed PEM based
generation plant [7] and by Rosesa et al. which
compared different reactor types in micro-CHP
plant [8] or Colella et al. which analysed the
performance of the after-burner in a similar plant
[9]. Other possible solutions for residential CHP
systems which have been discussed in the past
years are the SOFC-based micro-CHP plants
[10] which can reach higher electrical efficiency
but can be dangerous and not safe because of
the high working temperature. The same
problem can be found for the recent technology
high temperature PEM [11].
1

Fuel Processing
A catalytic burner is used to support the
endothermic reforming reaction and to pre-heat
the inlet air feeding the burner itself; finally, the
burner exhaust, found at a temperature of 120
C, is condensed releasing heat to a demi water
loop (see Figure 2). This amount of heat
represents the first cogeneration contribution.
The air excess ratio is set to around 20% of
stoichiometric amount and it is pre-heated at 60
C. The inlet fuel to the burner consists of the of
anode off-gas, that still contains H2, and fresh
natural gas. The percentage of external fuel
over the total amount needed varies with the
different working conditions.

Other works from Staffell et al. analysed the

costs related to a micro-CHP system PEMbased and results bring to values around $
3000-5000 for 1-2 kW PEM until 2020 [12][13];
Hawkes et al., on the other side, have created a
model in order to study the most suitable
economic profile in order to have optimal energy
and economic performance [14]. Finally, other
works based on micro-CHP systems with
PEMFC deal with the heat-to-power ratio which
can change analysing different household
scenarios or different periods of the year
[15][16].
Some works about residential PEM plants
consider only hydrogen fed systems with simple
configurations [7][17]. The contribution of this
work to the PEMFC micro-CHP study is the
development of a complete model directly linked
with a real application case. The model on which
analysis are based, in fact, is built with a
chemical process modelling software but is
directly taken from the P&ID of a micro
cogeneration system with PEM fuel cells that will
be built and installed in Turin in the context of
the RES-COGEN project. Having technical data
about the real plant components reduces the
requirement of empirical models to describe
their behaviour, especially for the stack, and
consequently the results will be more reliable
because based on existing components and
effective plant solutions. The inlet fuel will be
natural gas which will be reformed: the aim is
always to have a realistic plant configuration.

Figure 3. Burner Zone.

Figure 3 shows the burning zone model, where
the thermal powers transferred to the reformer
and the pre-heater are drawn as heat-exchanger
in which the heat duty is known. The burner offgas is condensed until 30 C and a drainer is
used to recover water; values for inlet mole flow
rates are calculated from the model with design
specifications and calculator blocks from the
knowledge of outlet temperatures and behaviour
of stoichiometric reactions.
The amount of fuel fed to the PEM stack can be
determined by the Faradays law as follows:

(Eq.1)

Where I is the single cell current, Ncell the

number of cells, F the Faraday constant, FU the
fuel utilization and 4.435 is the number of
equivalent electrons which corresponds to the
inlet fuel composition and it is weighted to the
fuel mole fractions (see Table 2). The steam-tocarbon ratio of the reformer was determined
according manufactures data (WSreformer,
DE) and it can vary between 3 and 4.

PLANT CONFIGURATION AND

MODEL
Figure 1. General Plant Configuration.
Figure 2. Detailed Plant Configuration.
Figure 1 shows a general configuration of the
whole plant, more detailed in Figure 2. The PEM
stack is the electrical power generator of the
system and thermal power is recovered from the
reformate entering the stack, from the stack
itself and from the burner exhaust and
transferred to a demineralized water loop (see
Figure 2) that will feed the thermal user. On the
other side liquid water contained in the burner
condensed exhaust and eventually in the cooled
reformate is separated with a drainer and
recirculated to the inlet: this water, with an
external integration, will be the one required for
the reforming [18].
The whole plant is fed by natural gas with the
composition of Table 1 [19].

(Eq.2)

The reforming unit concept design is shown on

Figure 5. The first component is the reformer,
whose working temperature is around 750 C;
this component has been modelled as an
isothermal Gibbs equilibrium reactor. The
second one is the water gas shift (WGS) reactor
operating at 200 C, modelled as an adiabatic
reactor. Finally, the last stage is a methanator
which also operates at 200 C. The water
needed for the steam reforming is pre-heated
and evaporated by two coolers located between
the three fuel processing steps described above.
Table 2. Number of corresponding hydrogen

Table 1. Natural gas composition

Figure 4. Anode Section.
2

All the previously described processing steps

(reformer + WGS + methanator) are required for
the high sensitiveness of the proton exchange
membrane fuel cell to carbon monoxide and
other impurities.
The outlet stream from the fuel processing unit
is then cooled before the PEMFC at a
temperature of 57 C and humidified at dew
point of 56 C. The heat removed from the
reformate is transferred through an heatexchanger to the demi-water loop (see Figure
2), which feeds the thermal user. This amount of
heat represents the second contribution of the
overall cogeneration heat.

Both anode and cathode enter the cell at 57C

and with a dew point temperature of 56 C.

Figure 5. WS Reformer Scheme.

Where
is the enthalpy change on the PEM
stack (sum of enthalpy change on anode and
cathode in the model),
is the electrical DC
power output,
is related to the sensible
heat due to the non-isothermal reaction (sum of
the heat duty of the two heat exchangers in the
model). From Eq.4 the heat generated in the
stack and transferred to the demi water loop
(
) can consequently be determined.

Figure 6. Cathode side.

The heat generated within the PEM was also
determined. The stack is maintained between 57
and 67 C (inlet and outlet temperatures) by the
demi water loop (see Figure 2): consequently,
the stack heat is the third source of
cogeneration
heat.
The
first
law
of
thermodynamic for open systems around the
stack control volume can be written as:

PEM Stack
The PEM stack is a Ballard FCgen-1030V3
Fuel Cell Stack, with 46 cells connected in
series and a nominal power generation of 1
kWe. As shown in Table 3, the current can vary
from 10 to 40 A with AC power output ranging
from 350 to 1200 W and a cell voltage between
0.67 and 0.79 V. The available experimental
behavior of the stack polarization was used for
predicting the performance of the same without
the need for a detailed electrochemical model.

(Eq.4)

Demi Water Loop

The demineralized water loop is used to transfer
heat from the PEMFC system to the thermal
user system (Figure 7). The choice of mass flow
rates and temperatures for the demi water loop
depends on the hot water applications. In the
demo station that is analysed probably this heat
will be transferred to a water tank that will be
integrated with hot water coming from a
domestic boiler because of the not-enough
amount of energy generated and the noncontinuous works of the generation system.
In the model, looking to future scenarios, the
possibility of direct integration with a house
thermal system has been considered: looking to
the PEM low working temperature a floor
heating system has been chosen.

Table 3. PEMFC operating parameters

In the flowsheet, the fuel cell stack component
was thus simply modelled separating anode and
cathode and calculating the amount of hydrogen
transferred from anode to cathode by mean of
the Faradays law. The hydrogen mole flow rate
can be determined once the current through the
stack is fixed and can be defined as:

(Eq.3)

The anode was modelled as a H2 component

separator from which the reacted amount of H2
is extracted. The cathode has been modelled as
a Gibbs equilibrium reactor with two inlet flows,
the fresh cathode air, pre-heated and
humidified, and the hydrogen from anode, and
water produced as the outlet. Both the separator
and the reactor have been considered
isothermal and the increase of temperature of
the PEM (from 57 to 67 C) has been realized
with two heat exchangers: in this way the
sensible heat of the stack can be separated
from other heat sources.
By analysing the cathode side, air humidification
and pre-heating are highlighted in Figure 6: in
particular the PermaPure heat and mass
transfer system was used. Thanks to the latter
component the fresh air is simultaneously
heated and humidified by the cathode off-gas.

Figure 7. Demi Water Loop.

Floor heating system
Using the normative UNI EN 1264 for radiant
panels and floor heating systems [20], a value
for the water needed in a general household has
been determined. Using data from literature a
2
2
value for a 25 m house, the value for a 50 m
has been scaled and obtained. The data refers
to a middle energy efficiency buildings in the
European energy classification.
A heating floor system has consequently been
2
dimensioned for an household of 50 m and the
amount of water needed has been calculated in
order to compare it with the water which can be
heated by the PEM power plant.

Hypothesis about the temperatures and the

pipes are required for the calculation :

Ambient temperature inside the house

= 20 C (i);

Temperature of the area below the

house = 10 C;

Water inlet temperature to the heating

loop = 45 C (V);

Water outlet temperature to the heating

loop = 35 C (R);

Pipes diameter = 15 mm;

(Eq.8)
Where
is the thermal coefficient related to the
convention between the floor and the ambient
2
air and it is 10.8 W/m K from the UNI EN 1264.
(Eq.9)
Where
is the thermal coefficient related to the
convention between the floor and the air in the
2
ambient below and it is fixed at 5.9 W/m K from
the UNI EN 1264.
The final water requirement can be compared to
the one from the PEM thermal water loop (from
35 to 45 C).

The flow layer structure has been define

in the table.
All the main imposed parameters are shown on
Table 4 and Table 5.

PLANT EFFICIENCY
From the model, values for mass and energy
streams can be extracted. The efficiency of the
conversion line AC/DC has been considered
95% and consequently the electrical power
output can be determined as:

Table 4. Heating floor structure.

Table 5. Floor heating system main
assumptions.
The thermal flow through a panel is defined as:

(Eq.10)

(Eq.5)

The parasitic electrical consumption within the

plant consists of the sum of the power
requirement for blowers (air and fuel feeds), and
the water pumps:

Where the parameters

and
are taken from
tables [20] knowing diameter of the pipes and
data from the layout of the floor; the
can be
expressed as:

(Eq.11)

(Eq.6)

And consequently:
(Eq.12)

The thermal flow can also be determined by the

knowledge of the area of the floor and the
thermal requirement for the winter season
(Turin).

The cogeneration heat,

, is the sum of the
three contributions that have been determined
before:

(Eq.7)

(Eq.13)

Where
is the heat transferred from
burner exhaust during its cooling and
condensation from 120 to 30 C,
is the
heat from the cooling of the reformate from the
methanator outlet temperature (~200 C) to the
PEM inlet temperature (57 C) and
is the
heat released in the chemical conversion within
the stack and determined according to Eq.13.
Finally electrical efficiency, thermal efficiency
and global efficiency can be written as follows:

Consequently the value of the parameter

can
be calculated and, from a specific table [20], the
distance between the pipes T can be
determined.
Finally the temperature of the floor can be
determined (Figure 8): from the UNI EN 1264
this value should be under 29 C for the
occupied areas. Finally the water mass flow rate
can be determined from Figure 9, 13 and 14: for
this calculation the values of the upper and
lower thermal resistance respect to the pipes
have to be calculated.

(Eq.14)

Figure 8. Floor surface temperature.

Figure 9. Water flow rate.

The thermal resistance above the pipe can be

expressed as:

(Eq.15)
(Eq.16)

Where
is the total molar flow rate of
external fuel both for burner and reformer and
LHV its related lower heating value.

The percentage of energy recirculated from the

anode exhaust and sent to the burner inlet has
also been determined. This value is 100% in
case of low current (no requirement of external
fuel fed to the burner) and decreases with the
increase of the fuel utilisation, which
corresponds to higher fuel conversion in the
PEMFC and consequently less fuel in the anode
exhaust.

RESULTS
Power and Efficiency maps
Figure 10. Electrical and Thermal Power output.
On Figure 10 the power generation and
consumption are shown: they all increase with
the increasing of the cell current. The electrical
AC output, determined from Eq.10, is linked to
the current and the voltage of the cell and, even
if the voltage slowly decreases, the increase in
current is more significant and consequently the
PEMFC power output increases.
The cogeneration thermal power consists of
three contributions: the burner exhaust cooling,
the reformate cooling and the PEM stack
cooling. The first two contributions increase
because of the growth of the fuel mole flow rate,
while the third one increases also because of
higher irreversibilities in the stack due to the
higher current.
The major contribution in the power
consumption calculation is due to the cathode
air blower which increases depending on the
current because of the higher air mass flow rate
required to keep the stack isothermal.

Floor heating system

The floor heating system sizing results are
shown on Table 7.
Table 7. Floor heating system results.
As can be seen on the table, to satisfy the
2
2
required thermal flow per m (64.2 W/m ) the
distance between the pipes has to be 35 cm.
The floor surface temperature is around 26 C
and it is lower than the upper value from UNI EN
1264 (29 C).
The required amount of water that has to fed the
water heating loop is 0.09 kg/s, while the CHP
plant is able to heat, from 35 to 45 C, 0.011
kg/s. Thus, the 1 kWe PEMFC-CHP plant, in the
best performance working point (30 A) is able to
satisfy ~ 13 % of the required amount of water.
To reach the total requirement two solutions are
available. The first one concerns with the
increase of the PEM power generation in order
to have a higher amount of thermal power nut
also higher related plant costs. The second one
deals with the increase of the household energy
efficiency by increasing the insulation of walls
and floor.

Figure 11. Efficiency Map.

Figure 11 shows the trend of the electrical,
thermal and global efficiency.
The electrical efficiency (Eq.14) is clearly
dominated by the fuel utilisation of the stack:
when the fuel utilisation increases, the efficiency
shows a growth of 17.5%. As soon as this value
becomes constant (from 30 to 40 A) the values
of electrical efficiency decreases: higher values
of fuel and power consumption and higher
irreversibilities are the main causes of this
behaviour.
The thermal efficiency (Eq.15) has got the same
behaviour, even if attenuated, and the same
causes of the cogeneration thermal power trend.
Higher
current
corresponds
to
higher
irreversibilities and mass flow rates in the plant
and consequently higher contribution to the
cogeneration thermal power.
The global efficiency, sum of the previous two
terms as shown on Eq.16, has got the same
behaviour of the electrical one. The maximum of
the global efficiency curve is around 30A, which
is consequently the working point with best
performance.

CONCLUSION
From Figure 10 and Figure 11, the electrical and
thermal power and generation and the
efficiencies have been discussed in the previous
section. Looking at the results, the use of PEM
in a cogeneration configuration for residential
power & heating seems to be an interesting way
for future studies. The main feature of this work
is that the plant is a real residential micro-CHP
system with full BoP components and
consequently the values related to the system
performance can be reached in the explained
configuration.
The integration of a PEMFC with a floor heating
system has also been discussed: values confirm
that the low working temperature of the PEM
fuel cell is suitable for a low temperature heating
system, but in order to be the main heat
generator inside the household, a higher size
PEM is needed together with an increase in the
performance of household insulation.
In this study, only the four working points from
the manufacturer have been considered: further

Table 6: Fuel recirculation analysis

studies should extend the analysis to other

areas of the efficiency map, by studying, at a
fixed current point (30 A), the influence of the
fuel utilisation related to the recirculation
efficiency.
The floor heating system sizing should also be
analysed using different households, including in
the study the different energy classifications
related to different insulation performance of the
house.
The last step will be an economic analysis to
evaluate the performance of the micro-CHP
system. PEM low working temperature are also
available for residential use with an efficient
energy integration between hot and cold
streams and without particular safety control
systems, that would be needed with all the high
temperature fuel cells: this means also a
reduction in the plant cost.

Thermal efficiency
Global efficiency
Conversion efficiency
Abbreviations
AC
Alternating Current
BoP
Balance of Plant
CHP
Combined Heat and Power
DC
Direct Current
LHV
Lower Heating Value
NG
Natural Gas
PEM Proton Exchange Membrane
PEMFC Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell
WGS Water Gas Shift

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electrochemical
semi-empirical
model,
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International Journal of Hydrogen Energy,
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[3] Marangio, F., Pagani, M., Santarelli, M.,
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Campanaria, S., Van Sint Annaland, M.,
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work has been partly funded by the RESCOGEN project with all the partners involved:
Giacomini S.p.a., DENER-POLITO, Hysytech
and Environmental Park S.p.a..

NOMENCLATURE
F
FU

Faraday constant
Fuel Utilisation
Molar base enthalpy
Enthalpy change on the stack
Cell current
Mole flow
Inlet natural gas to reformer mole flow

Inlet water for reforming mole flow

Hydrogen mole flow

Total fuel mole flow entering the plant

Number of cells

Heat generated in the PEM stack

Heat transferred to thermal user

Heat from burner exhausts cooling

Heat from reformate cooling

SC

Steam to carbon ratio

Power generation in the PEM
Alternating current power generation
Direct current power generation
Power consumption
Water pump consumption

Blower consumption
Net power generation
Greek letters
Electrical efficiency

Part1 model concept and formulation,

2009, International journal of hydrogen
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system (FCS), 2002, Journal of power
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and electrical management of PEM-fuel cell
power plants in distribution networks, 2012,
International journal of hydrogen energy, 37,
pp. 18243-18260.
[17] Muhsin T.G., Zehra U., Design of a PEM
cell system for residential application, 2009,
International journal of hydrogen energy, 34,
pp. 5242-5248.
[18] Pearlman, J.B., Bhargav, A., Shields, E.B.,
Jackson, G.S., Hearn, P.L., 2008, Modeling
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i-servizi/carburanti-combustibili/gasmetano/gas_naturale_rev_10_04.pdf.
[20] UNI EN 1264: Water based surface
embedded heating and cooling systems.

fluidized
bed
membrane
reactor
configurations for PEM based microcogeneration
systems,
Chemical
Engineering Journal, 171, pp. 1415-1427.
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Figures and Tables

Figure 1. General Plant Configuration.

Figure 2. Detailed Plant Configuration.

Figure 3. Burner Zone.

Figure 4. Anode Section.

Figure 5. WS Reformer Scheme.

Figure 6. Cathode side.

Figure 7. Demi Water Loop.

0

10

Figure 8. Floor surface temperature.

Figure 9. Water flow rate.

11

Figure 10. Electrical and Thermal Power output.

Figure 11. Efficiency Map.

12

Table 1. Natural gas composition.

ENI NATURAL GAS COMPOSITION
CH4
90.00%
C2H6
4.63%
C3H8
3.91%
C4H10
0.51%
C5H12
0.47%
CO2
0.48%
Tot.
100.00%

Table 2. Number of corresponding hydrogen.

Components
H2
CO
CH4
C2H6
C3H8
C4H10
C5H12

Equivalent
hydrogens
1
1
4
7
10
13
16

Mole Fraction
0.9
0.0463
0.0391
0.0051
0.0047
0.0048
0.9

Table 3. PEMFC operating parameters.

Current [A]

Stack Parameters

10

20

30

40

Stack gross power (DC)

365

695

988

1246

Stack voltage

36.5

34.7

32.9

31.1

Average cell voltage

0.792

0.755

0.716

0.677

Fuel pressure drop

kPa

11

Air pressure drop

kPa

Coolant pressure drop

kPa

11

FU

63

74

80

80

Air Flow

SLPM

8.3

17.6

30.7

41.4

Design lifetime

40000

Table 4. Heating floor structure.

Layer name

Layer material

Thickness [m]

Thermal conductivity [W/mK]

sb1

Terracotta tiles

0.01

sb2

Mortar bed

0.008

1.4

sc1
sc2

0.03
Concrete

0.02

sins

Polystyrene insulating

0.04

sl1

Concrete

0.04

1.28
0.035
1.28
2

sl2

Bricks

0.2

R = 0.35 m K/W

sl3

Lime and sand plaster

0.01

0.93

13

Table 5. Floor heating system main assumptions.

Parameter

Value

Unit

Symbol

50

3210

Ambient temperature

20

Ti

Temperature of the ambient below

10

TL

Inlet water temperature

45

TV

Outlet water temperature

35

TR

Pipes diameter

17

mm

De

Household area
Thermal power requirement

Convention value with ambient air

10.8

Convention value with below ambient air

W/m K

5.9

W/m K

Table 6: Fuel recirculation analysis.

Percentage of energy recirculated to burner inlet LHV base
10 A

100 %

20 A

76 %

30 A

57 %

40 A

57 %

Table 7. Floor heating system results.

Results

Value

Unit

Thermal resistance of layer B - RB

0.0157

m K/W

Upper thermal resistance - RO

0.1317

m K/W

Lower thermal resistance - RL

1.9414

m K/W

64.20

W/m2

1.02

6.4

19.5

0.50

2
2
2

35

mm

Floor Area

50.00

m2

Pipes length

142.86

Floor surface temperature

26.10

70

Water requirement

0.09

kg/s

Water from PEMFC CHP plant

0.011

kg/s

Water from CHP over total water

12.59

14