Application of Exergoeconomic and Exergoenvironmental Analysis to an SOFC System with an Allothermal Biomass Gasifier

Abstract

In the future, energy conversion systems will be needed that reduce the environmental impact and costs of energy supply when fossil fuels are employed. An alternative is using biomass as a renewable energy resource to achieve both effects. For this reason, interest in biomass gasification processes resurged considerably in the past years. In particular, combination of allothermal biomass gasification with a high-temperature solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) has met with great interest as an attractive option for electricity generation. To objectively evaluate this new biomass conversion process, the newly developed exergoenvironmental analysis and the established exergoeconomic analysis are applied. The basic idea of both methods is that in energy conversion systems, exergy represents the only rational basis for assigning environmental impacts and costs to the energy carriers and to the inefficiencies within the system. The present article identifies the most relevant system components from the environmental and economic points of view and provides information about possibilities of design improvements. Comparison of the results of both methods reveals that the most relevant process components are the SOFC, the heat exchanger for preheating the air, and the allothermal fluidized-bed gasifier. A special focus will be placed on differences between both analysis methods.

•  This paper is an updated version of a paper published in the ECOS'08 proceedings.

Keywords

• exergoenvironmental analysis, exergoeconomic analysis, biomass conversion