Development of the integrated hydrogen production system using micro-structured devices

A plate-type integrated fuel processor, which consisted of three different microreactors which were a reformer with combustor, two heat exchangers and an evaporator with combustor, was developed for the hydrogen production as feed of over 100 W-grade PEMFC. The methanol steam reforming was chosen in our fuel processor to produce highly pure hydrogen. Our system could be operated without any external electric heat supply. Hydrogen which might come from off gas was used as the combustion fuel at initial stage and methanol was used during the steam reaction. Cu/Zn/Al2O3 and Pt/Al2O3 catalysts were chosen for steam reforming of methanol and the combustion and coated on microchannel-patterned stainless steel sheets. The performance of the fuel processor was tested for long-term use. The integrated system was operated consistently with methanol conversion of over 80.0 mol% at 300 °C for 20 hrs without deactivation of catalyst. The maximum composition of hydrogen and production rate on dry basis was about 70 % and 1.7 L/min, respectively. The efficiency of our system was calculated based on the LHV of methanol and hydrogen. Overall thermal efficiency of our fuel processor was 59.5 % and thermal power of hydrogen was about 300 W.