Landfill gas cleanup for carbonate fuel cell power generation. Final report

Landfill gas represents a significant fuel resource both in the US and worldwide. The emissions of landfill gas from existing landfills has become an environmental liability contributing to global warming and causing odor problems. Landfill gas has been used to fuel reciprocating engines and gas turbines, and may also be used to fuel carbonate fuel cells. Carbonate fuel cells have high conversion efficiencies and use the carbon dioxide present in landfill gas as an oxidant. There are, however, a number of trace contaminants in landfill gas that contain chlorine and sulfur which are deleterious to fuel cell operation. Long-term economical operation of fuel cells fueled with landfill gas will, therefore, require cleanup of the gas to remove these contaminants. The overall objective of the work reported here was to evaluate the extent to which conventional contaminant removal processes could be combined to economically reduce contaminant levels to the specifications for carbonate fuel cells. A pilot plant cleaned approximately 970,000 scf of gas over 1,000 hours of operation. The testing showed that the process could achieve the following polished gas concentrations: less than 80 ppbv hydrogen sulfide; less than 1 ppmv (the detection limit) organic sulfur; less than 300 ppbv hydrogen chloride; less than 20--80 ppbv of any individual chlorinated hydrocarbon; and 1.5 ppm sulfur dioxide