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Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - 2:00 PM
FUEL 6.1

Microstructured Fuel Processors For Fuel Cell Applications

G. Kolb, V. Hessel, H. Löwe, Institut für Mikrotechnik, Mainz, Germany

A home-made Rh / Pt / CeO2 catalyst on alumina wash-coat basis was developed for propane steam reforming. Full conversion was achieved for a steam / carbon ratio of 3.2 at a temperature of 750°C and 10 ms residence time. The combination of Rh generating stability and high activity towards reforming, Pt improving the dispersion of Rh and catalyst stability against coking, CeO2 supplying oxygen to the noble-metals and improving the water-gas shift functionality thus reducing the CO content of the products, revealed an excellent performance of the catalyst. Under these conditions, merely CO and CO2 were found as carbon species in the product. A GHSV of 62,000 h-1 was calculated for the reformer reactor (assuming 93 % hydrogen utilization and 55 % fuel cell efficiency). A reactor has been realized for a 100 W methanol reformer combined with a catalytic afterburner, which combusts the anode of-gas of the fuel cell. However, the energy supply of the anode off-gas of the fuel cell is generally not sufficient for hydrocarbon steam reforming. Thus either additional fuel needs to be burnt in a separate burner or the reforming itself needs to be carried out under the presence of oxygen (partial oxidation or autothermal reforming). As a first step towards size reduction, IMM has developed a testing reactor for the preferential oxidation, which is a hybrid between testing and processing devices. IMM has developed a laser-welded 10 kW counter-flow heat exchanger which may be applied as an integrated heat-exchanger / reactor. Currently 5 kW laser-welded reforming reactors, water-gas shift reactors and PrOX reactors are under development for a complete fuel processor operating with autothermal iso-octane reforming. IMM has recently put into operation a pilot scale test rig including a 8 kW conventional evaporator and processing 180 Nml/min gas.

Summary: Within the scope of hydrogen generation for fuel-cells system volume is a critical issue for small and medium sized applications ranging from few watts to some ten kilowatts. Thus, the process intensification benefits of micro-technology are currently within focus of the world-wide research related to reforming.