KW-class diesel autothermal reformer with MicroChannel catalyst for solid oxide fuel cell system

Abstract

Solid oxide fuel cell(SOFC) has a higher fuel flexibility than low temperature fuel cells, such as polymer electrolyte fuel cell(PEMFC) and phosphoric acid fuel cell(PAFC). SOFCs also use CO and CH 4 as a fuel, because SOFCs are hot enough to allow the CR 4 steam reformation(SR) reaction and water-gas shift(WGS) reaction occur within the SOFC stack itself. Diesel is a good candidate for SOFC system fuel because diesel reformate gas include a higher degree of CO and CH 4 concentration than other hydrocarbon(methane, butane, etc.) reformate gas. Selection of catalyst for autothermalr reforming of diesel was performed in this paper, and characteristics of reforming performance between packed-bed and microchannel catalyst are compared for SOFC system. The mesh-typed microchannel catalyst also investigated for diesel ATR operation for lkW-class SOFC system. lkW-class diesel microchannel ATR was continuously operated about 30 hours and its reforming efficiency was achieved nearly 55%.