Previous study shows the ITM (oxygen ion transfer membrane)-integrated MCFC (molten carbonate fuel cell) hybrid system with CO2 recovery can maintain high efficiency; however, the oxygen partial pressure on the ITM permeate side is usually 1atm, which requires a very high pressure ratio of the ITM air compressor in order to separate the oxygen; using the sweep gas can solve this problem. In this paper the ITM-integrated MCFC hybrid systems with CO2 recovery using different sweep gases are studied. With the Aspen plus software, two systems with different sweep gases are established, and their performances are compared with the benchmark system without sweep gas; the effects of key parameters on the optimum system performance are also investigated. Results show that compared with the benchmark system, the efficiencies of the systems with sweep gases are increased and the pressure ratios of the air compressors are decreased; the system using pure CO2 as sweep gas can improve the system efficiency by 1.25%, which is superior to the system using the mixture gas of CO2 and H2O as sweep gas. Achievements from this paper will provide a valuable reference for CO2 recovery from the MCFC hybrid power system with lower energy consumption. Copyright (c) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.