Direct Carbon Fuel Cells: Converting Waste to Electricity

• Main Authors: Wolk, Ronald H, Lux, Scott, Gelber, Stacy, Holcomb, Franklin H
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Subjects: ARMY FACILITIES; Biology; DCFC(DIRECT CARBON FUEL CELLS); ELECTRIC POWER; Electric Power Production and Distribution; ENERGY CONSUMPTION; ENERGY CONVERSION; ENERGY EFFICIENT; FUEL CELLS; Physical Chemistry; PYROLYSIS; SOLID WASTES; Solid Wastes Pollution and Control; SWARS(SOLID WASTE ANNUAL REPORTING SYSTEM); VEGETATION

The U.S. Army has policies to minimize production of waste materials, maximize recycle of waste materials, and minimize energy consumption on its installations. A beneficial way to implement these policies is to convert paper, wood, vegetation, and Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) fractions into a carbon-rich feed stock by pyrolysis to fuel Direct Carbon Fuel Cells (DCFCs). DCFCs potentially offer a unique approach for the direct conversion of biomass-derived, carbon-rich solid fuel to electricity at very high conversion, with the production of a CO2-rich flue gas. This work gathered information on the quantities of waste material available at U.S. Army installations from installation reports and from the U.S. Army Solid Waste Annual Reporting System (SWARS) database, then estimated the amount of electricity that DCFC technologies could generate from those wastes, and finally compared those amounts with the current average annual electrical loads at the 10 largest Army installations. The original document contains color images. Prepared in cooperation with Wolk Integrated Technical Services, 1056 Hyde Ave, San Jose, CA 95129. Work Unit 0121H0. Project No. IEA, Work Unit No. DE-AI01-05FE69134.