Fuel cell integrated with steam reformer

Claim 1

A process of providing a continuous supply of hydrogen fuel to a fuel cell system, the system being comprised of a heat exchanger, a burner, a catalytic reactor containing a catalyst bed for catalyzing the production of hydrogen from a gaseous mixture of water and methanol and a fuel cell comprised of a fuel electrode, an oxygen electrode and an electrolyte disposed therebetween, the process comprising the steps of: (a) passing a gaseous mixture consisting essentially of water and methanol to the heat exchanger to heat the mixture to a superheated state, the temperature and composition of the superheated mixture being sufficient to supply at least about 90% of the heat required for reforming the methanol contained in said mixture by condensation, (b) passing the superheated gaseous mixture of water and methanol into the catalytic reactor to form hydrogen by an endothermic reaction of water and methanol over the catalyst bed, the catalytic reactor being in the form of a tube having a length to diameter ratio of from about 2 to about 6, said catalyst bed comprising a low activity, high stability zinc oxide and chromium oxide catalyst comprised of about 30 to 65 percent by weight Zn and about 5 to 35 percent by weight Cr, followed by a high activity zinc oxide and copper oxide catalyst on alumina comprised of about 5 to 20 percent by weight Zn, about 15 to 40 percent by weight Cu, and about 15 to 50 percent by weight alumina, the temperature of said superheated mixture being between about 425° and about 600° C. and the water to methanol ratio being between about 2 and about 9, (c) directing hydrogen produced in step (b) to the fuel electrode of the fuel cell, (d) directing air into the oxygen electrode of the fuel cell to effect an electrochemical reaction to produce electricity, (e) exhausting the gaseous effluent from the fuel electrode, a portion of which is a combustible gas, burning the combustible portion of the fuel electrode exhaust in the burner, feeding the burner exhaust to the heat exchanger to supply heat for the superheating of the water and methanol in step (a) whereby the gases exhausted from the fuel electrode supply at least a major portion of the thermal energy, via combustion, to heat the water/methanol mixture to the superheated state.