Removal Of Highly Concentrated VOCs Via A Solid Oxide Fuel Cell To Reclaim Electricity Energy

In this paper, we proposed to degrade VOCs with a solid oxide fuel cell reactor, and via oxidation reaction in the anode chamber convert VOCs to CO2 and H2O as well as generating electricity.We selected toluene, ethanol and formaldehyde as representatives of VOCs. Firstly we compared the three VOCs with traditional SOFC fuel hydrogen as to their generating performance, to get a result that the VOCs have higher generating efficiency than hydrogen with the same conditions. Then we discussed influence of temperature, flow rate and concentration in the cell performance. Cell performance increased significantly at 600℃ and 650℃ is best temperature. Cell performance increased with both a higher flow and initial concentration with three VOCs. Toluene, ethanol and formaldehyde have a maximum power density of 14.07 mW/cm2,45.62 mW/cm2and 0.8769 mW/cm2 with a maximum flow and at highest concentration, power density of 8.420 mW/cm2,46.64 mW/cm2and 0.7491 mW/cm2 could be got, respectively. All three VOCs are effectively removed at concentrations of high levels. Both toluene of 5.472×105 ppmv and ethanol of 4.624×105 ppmv could be removed by 93%, and formaldehyde of 61.98 ppmv could be removed by 88.6%. With a low flow of 50 mL/min, toluene, ehtanol and formaldehyde got a power efficiency of 29.93%, 94.24% and 24.04%, respectively.The EIS images of the cell with three VOCs demonstrated that increase in flow promoted the reaction at the three-boundary phase while increase of initial concentration decreased the conductivity of the cell.