POWER PLANT WITH MEMBRANE WATER GAS SHIFT REACTOR SYSTEM

摘要

A fuel processing system (14) supplies a flow of H₂-rich reformate (60) to a water gas shift membrane reactor (62) having a water gas shift reaction region (74) and a permeate region (76) separated by an H₂-separation membrane (64) . H₂ formed over a catalyst (75) in the reaction region selectively passes through the membrane to the permeate region for delivery to a use point, as the fuel cell (12) of a fuel cell power plant (10). A sweep gas (78), preferably steam (80), sweeps the permeate region to remove the H₂ therefrom and thereby facilitate further reaction and separation of H₂. The direction of sweep gas flow relative to the reformate flow is controlled for H₂-separation performance and is used to determine the loading of catalyst in the reaction region. The coolant (16, 16', 16"), thermal (40, 70A/70B), and/or pressure control (53, 55) sub-systems of a fuel cell power plant are integrated with the fuel processing system in a manner to provide increased system efficiency.