Molten Carbonate Fuel Cells

Molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) is a high-temperature fuel cell. Because of high-temperature operation, various fuel gases can be widely used and internal reforming of hydrocarbon fuel is also possible, resulting in improving fuel utilization and providing higher power generation efficiency. Many MCFC plants are being installed as the stationary cogeneration power supply using various fuels in various countries in the world, and among them, the world’s largest fuel cell power plant has 2.8 MW electric capacity. The power generation efficiency of the systems including smaller 300 kW units reaches 47% (LHV, net, same as above unless otherwise noted). In addition, the hybrid systems which contain both MCFC and gas turbine have been demonstrated, and a new carbon dioxide (CO₂) recovering hybrid system concept with extremely high value of 77% efficiency is proposed. The advantage of MCFC is not only the use of city gas but also the use of digestion gas from the sewage disposal plant. In the future, it is expected to develop a large-scale centralized electric power generating plant using the coal gasification gas. The MCFC is one of the key technologies to reduce CO₂ emission for the future.