Gasification and Syngas Reforming of City Waste Papers for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

Research Article

Ke SY, Chen YY and Wei WCJ

Abstract

This study has investigated the thermal processes of three types of Municipal Solid Wastes (MSW) in Taipei. Three key properties of the processes are concerned, the formation of tar, the sulfur content, and the reforming of CH4 as the syngas is used for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs). K2CO3 is used as a catalyst to reduce the amount of tar. One of tar production from MSW is reduced from 37.2 wt% to 13.7 wt%. The raw syngas from gasification is then reformed using a Ni-CeO2 catalyst on a γ-Al2O3 support to optimize the quantity of H2 and reduce the CH4 content. H2S generated by waste paper is in a level of 1.83 ppm, and reduced to 0.04 ppm by CaCO3. Syngas with a composition of 51.3 vol% H2, 44.8 vol% CO and 3.4 vol% CH4 is used for the power generation by a selfassembled SOFC. The best power density is 269 mW.cm-2 at 800°C, which is inferior to the maximum value of 326 mW.cm-2 for a cell that uses H2 as the fuel.

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