High-temperature fuel cells for fresh water production Original Research Article

This paper analyzes different configurations in which fuel cells provide electricity to a reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plant, and heat is recovered via a heat exchanger pre-heating the input seawater to feed both a multistage flash (MSF) unit and a RO unit. The energetic and economic results of different hybrid configurations with molten carbonate and solid oxide fuel cells are studied and compared. Depending on the efficiency of the different parts of the fuel cell (FC) system, the fuel utilization, the type and size of fuel cell, the internal configuration of the fuel cell stack, the integration of the internal processes in the FC plant as well as the integration of the fuel cell with the desalination technologies, the amount of generated power and heat will significantly vary. Among the different possibilities of integration the scheme of preheating feed water to RO membranes, in order to improve its productivity, or alternatively, reduce the HP pump consumption are particularly interesting.