Title: Exergy-energy, economic and environmental evaluations of a solid oxide fuel cell based trigeneration system

Authors: Yunis Khan; Pawan Kumar Singh; Aftab Anjum; K.K. Sivakumar; Shikha Gupta; Subhash Mishra

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (ISM), Dhanbad, Jharkhand, 82600, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (ISM), Dhanbad, Jharkhand, 82600, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kameshwar Narayan Singh Government Polytechnic, Samastipur, Bihar, 848160, India ' School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Mohan Babu University, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India ' Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Bhagwan Parshuram Institute of Technology, Delhi, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, IMS Engineering College, Ghaziabad, Utter Pradesh, 201015, India

Abstract: This work proposes a trigeneration system based on a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) for power generation, steam production, and cooling effects. The results show that energy, exergy efficiency, and total cost of the trigeneration plant were enhanced by 36.51%, 4.14%, and 1.76%, respectively, as compared to the conventional SOFC-based gas turbine plant. However, the CO₂ emission per MWh of output energy was reduced by 26.73%. Additionally, cooling effects of 100 kW were obtained at 5°C for general-purpose applications, and heating effects of 101.4 kW were obtained by generating saturated steam through a heat recovery steam generator.

Keywords: solid oxide fuel cell; gas turbine; hybrid system; trigeneration system; double effect vapour absorption system; heat recovery steam generation system.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEX.2025.146799

International Journal of Exergy, 2025 Vol.47 No.2, pp.136 - 152

Received: 18 Jan 2025
Accepted: 12 Feb 2025
Published online: 18 Jun 2025 *

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