FUEL PROCESSING APPARATUS HAVING A FURNACE FOR FUEL CELL POWER PLANT

摘要

A fuel cell system, generally, has a fuel processing apparatus for steam reforming a hydrocarbon fuel and steam into a product gas, and a fuel cell stack for converting the product gas into electricity. The fuel processing apparatus is a catalytic reaction apparatus (36) having a furnace (10) and a catalytic reactor. In an effort to increase the efficiency of the catalytic reaction apparatus and decrease the size and/or number of catalytic reactors, the present invention relates to a furnace that utilizes air and fuel preheat chambers (12, 14) to increase the flame temperature within the furnace.