Full Description

This part of IEC 62282 specifies performance test methods of power-to-methane systems based on solid oxide cells (SOCs). Water, CO2, and electricity are supplied to the system to produce methane and oxygen.

This document is not intended to be applied to solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) cell/stack assembly units for power generation purposes only, since these are covered in IEC 62282-7-2. In addition, the test methods for SOC cell/stack assembly units including reversible operation (without any methanation reactor) are already described in IEC 62282-8-101. Users can substitute the selected test methods of this document with the equivalent test methods given in IEC 62282-8-101 (solid oxide electrolysis cell (SOEC) to produce H2 only as well as SOFC operation mode and reversible mode) and in IEC 62282-7-2 (SOFC mode only).

This document covers two types of processes as shown in Figure 1:
• Case 1: Steam and CO2 are introduced into the SOC (co-electrolysis process), and the product gas (mainly, H2 + CO) is supplied to a methanation reactor (catalytic reactor);
• Case 2: Steam is introduced into the SOC to generate H2, which is supplied into a methanation reactor with CO2.

Besides these two cases, the methanation catalyst can be integrated within the SOC, but this case is not within the scope of this document. This document provides, for testing systems, information on instruments and specifies measurement methods to test the performance of SOC cell/stack assembly units and of the methanation reactor for energy conversion purposes. To produce CH4 from water and CO2, the SOC is operated in electrolysis mode (solid oxide electrolysis cell (SOEC)). The SOC can be operated either in fuel cell mode (SOFC) or in reversible operation mode or both. In this document, the system is considered not to have components which store electricity, fluids, or heat.

This document is intended to be used for data exchanges in commercial transactions between the system manufacturers and customers. Users of this document can selectively execute test items suitable for their purposes from those described in this document.