Sulfur-tolerant fuel processors for fuel-cell power plants. Final report

Technical Report · Fri Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 1982

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6754764· OSTI ID:6754764

Houghtby, W. E.; Buswell, R. F.; Bett, J. A.S.; Lesieur, R. R.; Preston, J. L.; Meyer, A. P.; Setzer, H. J.

The objective was a fuel processing system that would use No. 2 fuel oil or other heavy sulfur-containing fuels to provide hydrogen for fuel cell power plants. Two approaches were considered, adiabatic and hybrid steam reforming. In the adiabatic reformer, air is added to the inlet fuel and steam to provide, by combustion, the endothermic heat for reforming. A fuel mixing nozzle and a system of two catalysts were developed which permitted a bench scale (3 kW) adiabatic reformer to operate for 800 hours on No. 2 fuel oil and some coal liquids at design conditions for a 4.8 MW phosphoric acid fuel cell power plant. The hybrid reformer consists of a primary catalytic, tubular reformer followed by an adiabatic reformer in series. Various catalysts for the primary reformer were tested with No. 2 fuel oil in an electrically heated bench-scale reformer. Catalyst T-12 (Toyo Engineering Company) operated carbon-free at conditions suitable for the hybrid reformer for over 300 hours. At the design heat rate for the 4.8 MW phosphoric acid fuel cell power plant, the cost of the power plant with the hybrid fuel processor was estimated to be 8% less than with the adiabatic reformer.

• Research Organization: United Technologies Corp., South Windsor, CT (USA). Power Systems Div.
• OSTI ID: 6754764
• Report Number(s): EPRI-EM-2686; ON: DE83900576
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

08 HYDROGEN
080103 -- Hydrogen-- Production-- Steam Reformer Processes
30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION
300503* -- Fuel Cells-- Materials
Components
& Auxiliaries
ACID ELECTROLYTE FUEL CELLS
AUTOTHERMAL REFORMER PROCESSES
BENCH-SCALE EXPERIMENTS
CATALYSTS
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
COAL LIQUIDS
COST
DIRECT ENERGY CONVERTERS
ELECTROCHEMICAL CELLS
ELEMENTS
FLUIDS
FUEL CELL POWER PLANTS
FUEL CELLS
FUEL OILS
FUEL SYSTEMS
FUELS
GAS GENERATORS
HYBRID SYSTEMS
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
HYDROGEN FUEL CELLS
HYDROGEN GENERATORS
HYDROGEN PRODUCTION
INORGANIC ACIDS
LIQUID FUELS
LIQUIDS
NONMETALS
OILS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
OTHER ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
PERFORMANCE TESTING
PETROLEUM PRODUCTS
PHOSPHORIC ACID
POWER PLANTS
REFORMER PROCESSES
STEAM REFORMER PROCESSES
SULFUR
TESTING