A Reforming Characteristics of a Mid-Temperature Methane-Steam Reformer With Various Configurations

A external methane-steam reformer is applied to fuel delivery of high temperature fuel cell system. When the reformer is equipped for high temperature fuel cell system, the heat supply of the methane steam reformer is critical to improve the system efficiency. Typically, system efficiency is improved as the waste heat is utilized. However, the general performance of steam reformer is designed to provide the rated performance at high temperature. In this study, characteristics of mid-temperature steam reformer are investigated. At mid-temperature operation of steam reformer, it is important to understand the performance of the reformer include inlet flow rate, temperature, and reformer geometry, and so on. Among them, the characteristics of the reforming catalyst are the most fundamental and most important in the performance of the reformer. Also, it is possible to optimize the performance of the reformer by understanding the reforming rate depending on the reformer inlet temperature, the amount of heat source, and the SCR (Steam to Carbon Ratio). Therefore, experimental study was carried out to understand the characteristics of the reforming catalyst. In order to carry out the experiment, the length of the reformer and the number of the heat source tubes were made variously so that the performance characteristics according to the volume of the reforming catalyst layer were confirmed. Through analysis of the experimental results, the characteristics of the reforming catalyst, which is an important factor in the performance of the reformer, can be understood under various conditions.