REFORMING OF FUEL FOR FUEL CELL

摘要

PURPOSE:To reduce the temperature of a combustion catalyst in the reforming of a fuel for a fuel cell by the steam-reforming of hydrocarbons and to solve the problem of heat-resistance of the combustion catalyst by combining the catalytic combustion of off-gas of fuel cell out of a reforming reaction tube and the partial oxidation of stock hydrocarbons in a reforming catalyst layer. CONSTITUTION:A reforming stock gas composed mainly of hydrocarbons is supplied to a reaction tube 2 of a fuel reformer 1 packed with a reforming catalyst 3 and is reformed with steam by heating the reforming catalyst layer 3 from the outside of the reaction tube 2 to produce a hydrogen-rich reformed gas for fuel cell. The above steam-reforming process is added with the following steps. Oxygen or air is added to the reforming stock gas at the inlet of the reforming catalyst layer 3 to heat the reforming catalyst layer 3 from inside by the partial oxidation of the stock hydrocarbons and, at the same time, the low-calorific gas composed mainly of the off-gas of the fuel cell 4 is subjected to catalytic combustion in a combustion catalyst layer 5 outside of the reaction tube 2 to heat the reforming catalyst layer 3 from outside.