Direct Ammonia SOFC-Gas Turbine Hybrid Systems Modeling for Heavy-Duty Transportation Sector

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) have the potential to run on ammonia without the need for any pre-reforming and therefore enable effective energy conversion of ammonia to power. In this work, an ammonia based SOFC-Gas turbine (GT) system concept is proposed and assessed for the mobility sector. The model integrates a three-dimensional multiscale SOFC stack simulation based on a validated Ni-GDC/GDC/SSC button cell model with balance-of-plant component modeling. This work discusses the thermodynamics of SOFC operation and system concepts to utilize ammonia in a hybrid system for a kW-scale transportation application. System indicators and performance metrics such as efficiency, electrochemical utilization and turbine inlet temperature are evaluated and optimized. The proposed hybrid system is computationally predicted to reach efficiencies of up to 60% for pressurized operation.