Energetic and exergetic assessments of glycerol steam reforming in a combined power plant for hydrogen production. (14th September 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Rabbani, M.; Dincer, I.
• Is Part Of: International journal of hydrogen energy. Volume 40:Number 34(2015)
• Page Start: 11125
• Page End: 11132
• Publication Date: 2015-09-14
• Subjects: Steam reformer -- Thermodynamics -- Energy -- Exergy -- Efficiency -- Hydrogen; Hydrogen as fuel -- Periodicals; Hydrogène (Combustible) -- Périodiques; Hydrogen as fuel; Periodicals; 665.81
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2015.04.012
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0360-3199

Abstract

Abstract: This paper presents a thermodynamic analysis of a steam reformer coupled with a combined power plant to produce hydrogen from steam and hydrocarbon fuel. In the analysis, the steam reformer uses glycerol as a fuel and produces hydrogen for high temperature proton exchange fuel cells in which the catalyst is tolerant to the amount of carbon monoxide. The results show that increasing the steam to glycerol ratio increases the hydrogen production. However, it decreases the overall efficiency of the system because of the high heat input requirement to the system. Numerous operating conditions and plant parameters are varied and their effects on the overall energy and exergy efficiencies of the system are studied. An optimization study is performed in order to find the optimal system parameters for better performance. Highlights: A combined power cycle including steam glycerol reforming process is developed and analyzed. Numerous parameters are varied to study their effects on the overall system efficiency. Optimization of the overall cycle is performed using stat-ease ® in order to find the optimal operating parameters.