Effectiveness of heat-integrated methanol steam reformer and polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell stack systems for portable applications

Efficiently combining proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) stack with methanol steam reformer (MSR) into a small portable system is still quite a topical issue. Using methanol as a fuel in PEMFC stack includes a series of chemical processes where each proceeds at a unique temperature. In a combined MSR-PEMFC-stack system with integrated auxiliary fuel processors (vaporizer, catalytic combustor, etc.) the processes are both endothermic and exothermic hence their proper thermal integration can help raising the system efficiency. A concept of such fully integrated and compact system is proposed in this study. Three separate systems are designed based on different PEMFC stacks and MSR. Low-temperature (LT) and conventional high-temperature (cHT) PEMFC stack characteristics are based on available data from suppliers. Also, a novel high-temperature (nHT) PEMFC stack is proposed because its operating temperature coincides with that of MSR. A comparative study of modelled systems is performed using a mass and energy balances zero-dimensional model, which is interdependently coupled to a physical model based on finite element method (FEM). The results indicate that a system with nHT PEMFC stack is feasible and has the potential to reach higher system efficiencies than systems with LT or cHT PEMFC stacks.