Ethanol catalytic membrane reformer for direct PEM FC feeding

In this paper an ethanol reformer based on catalytic steam reforming with a catalytic honeycomb loaded with RhPd/CeO₂ and palladium separation membranes with an area of 30.4 cm² has been used to generate a pure hydrogen stream of up to 100 ml/min to feed a PEM fuel cell with an active area of 5 cm². The fuel reformer behavior has been extensively studied under different temperature, ethanol-water flow rate and gas pressure at a fixed S/C ratio of 1.6 (molar). The hydrogen yield has been controlled by acting upon the ethanol-water fuel flow and gas pressure. A mathematical model of the ethanol reformer has been developed and an adaptive and predictive control has been implemented on a real time system to take account of its nonlinear behavior. With this control the response time of the reformer can be reduced by a factor of 7 down to 8 s. The improved dynamics of the controlled reformer match better the quickly changing hydrogen demands of fuel cells. They reached a magnitude where costly hydrogen buffers between the reformer and the fuel cell can be omitted and an electric buffer at the output of the fuel cell is sufficient.