Solid oxide fuel cells in combination with biomass gasification for electric power generation

Biomass, a source of renewable energy, represents an effective substitute to fossil fuels. Gasification is a process that organics are thermochemically converted into valuable gaseous products (e.g. biogas). In this work, the catalytic test demonstrated that the biogas produced from biomass gasification mainly consists of H2, CH4, CO, and CO2, which were then be used as the fuel for solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC). Planar SOFCs were fabricated and adopted. The steam reforming of biogas was carried out at the anode of a SOFC to obtain a hydrogen-rich fuel. The performance of the SOFCs operating on generated biogas was investigated by I–V polarization and electrochemical impedance spectra characterizations. An excellent cell performance was obtained, for example, the peak power density of the SOFC reached 1391 mW·cm−2 at 750 °C when the generated biogas was used as the fuel. Furthermore, the SOFC fuelled by simulated biogas delivered a very stable operation.