Energy and Exergy Analysis of a Tri-Generation System based on Ammonia-Fed Solid Oxide Fuel Cell

In this research, a tri-generation system based on ammonia fed solid oxide fuel cell is proposed and investigated. This study involves thermodynamic modeling of the fuel cell to conduct energy and exergy analysis of the system components in order to evaluate the energy and exergy efficiencies of the tri-generation system. In the proposed system, a solid oxide fuel cell with hydrogen-proton conducting electrolyte is used as the prime mover, which has the best performance for ammonia-fed fuel cells based on the reported results in the literature. The effects of important parameters such as current density, operating temperature and pressure are investigated on the performance of the proposed tri-generation system. Based on the results, assuming 1073 K and 505 kPa for the fuel cell working conditions, the energy utilization factor and exergetic efficiency of the proposed system are calculated to be 108.9% and 75%, respectively and overall output power is increased 633 kW by using tri-generation system instead of fuel sell stack only, regardless of the cooling and heating load produced.