Patent ID: 8003264

Claim:
A process for the generation of electricity and the production of a concentrated carbon dioxide stream using a molten carbonate fuel cell, the fuel cell comprising an electrolyte sandwiched between an anode and a cathode, an anode chamber and a cathode chamber, wherein the process comprises: feeding a fuel gas to the anode chamber and a cathode inlet gas comprising carbon dioxide and a molecular oxygen to the cathode chamber; producing electricity, an anode off-gas and a cathode off-gas via anode and cathode reactions; feeding at least part of the anode off-gas to a catalytic afterburner wherein it is oxidized with an oxidant to obtain an oxidized anode off-gas; recycling the remainder of the anode off-gas to the anode chamber; wherein the oxidant consists of part of the cathode off-gas and/or part of a molecular oxygen containing external oxidant stream, which external oxidant stream comprises at most 20% (v/v) nitrogen; the oxidized anode off-gas is brought into heat-exchange contact with the remainder of the cathode off-gas and the remainder of the external oxidant stream to obtain a cooled anode off-gas and a heated mixture of cathode off-gas and external oxidant; the cathode off-gas is cooled before it is brought in heat-exchange contact with the oxidized anode off-gas; the cooled anode off-gas and the heated mixture of cathode off-gas and external oxidant are fed to the cathode chamber as cathode inlet gas; as soon as a set point in the carbon dioxide concentration at the cathode chamber outlet of in the range of from 5 to 40% (v/v) is reached, part of the cooled anode off-gas is withdrawn from the process, where it is processed to obtain a concentrated carbon dioxide stream.