Preliminary Analysis of Hydrogen Production Integrated with Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell

Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is an interesting option for electricity generation. However, the usage of pure hydrogen feeding to PEMFC faces many problems such as high price and gas storage capacity. On-board fuel processor integrated with PEMFC is therefore a more preferable option. Two hydrogen production processes from crude ethanol feed, a by-product of fermentation of corn stover, integrated with PEMFC were developed and proposed. They are steam reforming (SR) process integrated with PEMFC and steam reforming process coupled with a CO preferential oxidation (COPROX) reactor with PEMFC. The results showed that the optimal operating conditions for both processes were similar i.e. S/F ratio of 9, WGS reactor temperature of 250oC and membrane area of 0.6 m2. However, the optimal SR temperature of both processes were different i.e. 500oC and 460oC. Both processes produced pure hydrogen gas at 0.53 mol/s. The energy requirement of the SR process alone was higher than SR process coupled with a COPROX about 0.19 MW. The produced hydrogen gas entered PEMFC at current density of 1.1 A cm-2, generating the power at of 0.44 W cm-2.