Performance Evaluation of Natural Gas based Steam Reformer for PEMFC

This paper presents performance evaluation of natural gas based steam reformer with special attention on the operating conditions of internal combustor In steam reformer in which strong endothermic process is involved, appropriate control of heat source is highly important that enables the efficient hydrogen production. In this study, experimental measuring device was setup to evaluate the performance of steam reformer for 5 kW PEMFC. The objective of the study is to investigate the dependence of the performance such as hydrogen reforming efficiency on the operation conditions such as inflowing mixed gas ratio and heat transfer through main reforming reactor and auxiliary combustor Experimental results showed that the hydrogen conversion rate can be improved through the temperature distribution control based on (1) main reactor inlet gases ratio such as steam to carbon ratio (SCR) and (2) air-fuel ratio at the auxiliary combustor With the increment of the amount of fuel in the combustor, the overall internal temperature could increase generally, but the thermal efficiency does not always increase. The study shows that the thermal efficiency and the fuel conversion rate of steam reformer could be improved by the effective heat transfer design and optimized parameter setup such as appropriate inlet gas mixed ratios.This work was supported by the New & Renewable Energy of the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) grant funded by the Korea government Ministry of Knowledge Economy, (Grant No. : 2010301003006B). We also acknowledge the financial support from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, subjected to the project EDISON (EDucation-research Integration through Simulation On the Net, Grant No.:NRF-2011-0020562)