A 75-kW methanol reforming fuel cell system

A 75-kW methanol reforming fuel cell system, which consists of a fuel cell system and a methanol auto-thermal reforming fuel processor has been developed at Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The core of the fuel cell system is a group of CO tolerant PEMFC stacks with a double layer composite structured anode. The fuel cell stacks show good CO tolerance even though 140 ppm CO was present in the reformate stream during transients. The auto-thermal reforming (ATR) fuel cell processor could adiabatically produce a suitable reformate without external energy consumption. The output of hydrogen-rich reformate was approximately 120 N m3 h−1 with a H2 content near 53% and the CO concentrations generally were under 30 ppm. The fuel cell system was integrated with the methanol reforming fuel processor and the peak power output of the fuel cell system exceeded 75 kW in testing. The hydrogen utilization approached 70% in the fuel cell system.