Use of active carbon for the removal of sulphur impurities from a biogas stream for SOFC application

An interesting application of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology is the micro-cogeneration (μ-CHP) in the residential area fed with a sustainable (renewable) source such as biogas produced from anaerobic digestion (AD) of organic waste. Even though the major components of biogas are CH4 and CO2, several contaminants can be inside the biogas and have to be removed before entering the cell. Sulphur compounds are the most harmful for SOFC systems. The aim of this work is to study the removal of sulphur compounds using activated carbon adsorption trapping and test the obtained results in a SOFC single cell. Two different carbon filters were tested under the following sulphur contaminants: H2S, THT, COS, DMS and single cells were performed with a simulated biogas enriched with a selected small amounts of the contaminants in order to evaluate tolerance and degradation process.