• Journal of the Korean Society of Combustion
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.8-14
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• 2010

Fuel processing systems which convert fuel into rich gas (such as stream reforming, partial oxidation, autothermal reforming) need high temperature environment ($600{\sim}1,000^{\circ}$). Generally, anode-off gas or mixture of anode-off gas and LNG is used as input gas of fuel reformer. In order to make efficient and low emission burner system for fuel reformer, it is necessary to elucidate the combustion and emission characteristic of fuel reformer burner. The purpose of this study is to develop a porous premixed flat ceramic burner that can be used for 1~5 kW fuel cell reformer. Ceramic burner experiments using natural gas, hydrogen gas, anode off gas, mixture of natural gas & anode off gas were carried out respectively to investigate the flame characteristics by heating capacity and equivalence ratio. Results show that the stable flat flames can be established for natural gas, hydrogen gas, anode off gas and mixture of natural gas & anode off gas as reformer fuel in the porous ceramic burner. For all of fuels, their burning velocities become smaller as the equivalence ratio goes to the lean mixture ratio, and a lift-off occurs at lean limit. Flame length in hydrogen and anode off gas became longer with increasing the heat capacity. In particular, the blue surface flame is found to be very stable at a very lean equivalence ratio at heat capacity and different fuels. The exhausted NOx and CO measurement shows that the blue surface flame represents the lowest NOx and CO emissions since it remains very stable at a lean equivalence ratio.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11b
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• pp.2181-2185
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• 2008

Fuel processing systems which convert HC fuel into $H_2$ rich gas (such as stream reforming, partial oxidation, auto-thermal reforming) need high temperature environment($600-1000^{\circ}C$). Generally, anode-off gas or mixture of anode-off gas and LNG is used as input gas of fuel reformer. In order to make efficient and low emission burner system for fuel reformer, it is necessary to elucidate the combustion and emission characteristic of fuel reformer burner. The purpose of this study is to develop a porous premixed flat ceramic burner that can be used for 1-5kW fuel cell reformer. Ceramic burner experiments using natural gas, hydrogen gas, anode off gas were carried out respectively to investigate the flame characteristics by heating capacity and equivalence ratio. Results show that the stable flat flames can be established for natural gas, hydrogen gas, anode off gas and mixture of natural & anode off gas as reformer fuel. For all of fuels, their burning velocities become smaller as the equivalence ratio goes to the lean mixture ratio, and a lift-off occurs at lean limit. Flame length in hydrogen and anode off gas became longer with increasing the heat capacity.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11b
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• pp.2198-2203
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• 2008

Hydrogen which can be produced through reforming process of hydrocarbon fuel is supplied into anode side of fuel cell system. In the fuel cell, only 70% of hydrogen is consumed through electrochemical reaction and 30% hydrogen passed by as anode off gas. When electrical output of fuel cell is within range of 1.0 to 3.0kW, burner for the reformer uses only anode off gas. And it uses mixture gas of anode off gas and LNG within range of 3.5 to 5.0kW in electrical output. CHEMKIN 4.1 program's Premixed code was used for calculating the properties of each gas. Results show that burning velocity and adiabatic flame temperature are 34.4cm/s, 1681.7K at equivalence ratio 0.8 within range of 1.0kW to 3.0kW and for cases of 3.5kW, 5.0kW, of electrical output, burning velocity and adiabatic flame temperature represent 30.5, 29.8cm/s and 1722.8, 1750K respectively. CO shows the lowest emission index at equivalence ratio 0.8 and NOx reveals the highest emission index at equivalence ratio 1.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Combustion
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.5-10
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• 2012

The reformer system is a chemical device that drives the conversion of hydrocarbon to hydrogen rich gas under high temperature environment($600-1,000^{\circ}C$). Generally, NG(Natural Gas) or AOG(Anode Off Gas) is used as fuel of fuel cell reformer combustion system. The experimental study to analyze the combustion characteristics of a premixed ceramic burner used for 0.5-1.0 kW fuel cell reformer was performed. Ceramic burner experiments using NG and AOG were carried out to investigate the flame stability characteristics by heating capacity, equivalence ratio and different fuels respectively. The results show that surface flames can be classified into green, red, blue and lift-off flames as the equivalence ratio of methane-air mixture decreases. And the stable flames can be established using NG and AOG as reformer fuel in the perforated ceramic burner. In particular, the blue flame is found to be stable at a lean equivalence ratio under different mixture conditions of NG and AOG for the 0.5 to 1.0 kW fuel cell system power range. NOx emission is under 60 ppm between 0.70 to 0.78 of equivalence ratio and CO emission is under 50 ppm between 0.70 to 0.84 of equivalence ratio.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.132.1-132.1
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• 2010

Anode off-gas of high temperature fuel cells such as MCFC still contain combustible components such as hydrogen, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon. Thus, it's very important to fully burn anode off-gas and use the generated heat in order to increase system efficiency. In the present study, catalytic combustors have been applied to high temperature MCFC system so that the combustion of anode-off gas can be boosted up. Since the performance of catalytic combustor directly depends on the combustion catalyst, this study has been focused on the experimental investigation on the combustion characteristics of multiple commercial catalysts having different structures and compositions. In order to determine the design conditions of the catalytic combustor, parameters such as inlet temperature, space velocity and excess air ratio have been varied and optimized for combustor design. Results show that $H_2$ in off-gas assists $CH_4$ combustion in a way that it decreases minimum inlet temperature limit and increases maximum space velocity while keeping high fuel conversion efficiency.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.53-56
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• 2008

An ejector is a fluid machinery to be utilized for mixing fluids, maintaining vacuum, and transporting them. The Ejector is applied for a variety of industrial fields such as refrigerators and power plants. It is adopted to recycle anode off gas safely in 5kW Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell system of KEPRI(Korea Electric Power Research Institute). The ejector is placed at mixing point between the anode off gas and the cathode off gas or the fresh air. In this study, the entrainment ratio is measured according to the diametrical ratio of nozzle to throat. In addition, the performance curve of the ejector and the differential pressure in diffuser is observed.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.353-356
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• 2009

A pivotal mechanical balance of plant for 75kW class molten carbonate fuel cells comprise of a catalytic burner and an ejector which has been designed and tested in KEPRI(Korea Electric Power Research Institute). The catalytic burner, which oxidizes residual fuel in the anode tail gas, was operated at several conditions. Some problems arose due to local overheating or auto-ignition, which could limit the catalyst life. The catalytic burner was designed by considering both gas mixing and gas velocity. Test results showed that the temperature distribution is very uniform. In addition, an ejector is a fluid machinery to be utilized for mixing fluids, maintaining vacuum, and transporting them. The ejector is placed at mixing point between the anode off gas and the cathode off gas or the fresh air Several ejectors were designed and tested to form a suction on the fuel tail gas and balance the differential pressures between anode and cathode over a range of operating conditions. The tests showed that the design of the nozzle and throat played an important role in balancing the anode tail and cathode inlet gas pressures. The 75kW MCFC system built in our ejector and catalytic burner was successfully operated from Novembe, 2008 to April, 2009. It recorded the voltage of 104V at the current of 754A and reached the maximum generating power of 78.5kW DC. The results for both stand-alone and integration into another balance of plant are discussed.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.139-148
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• 2013

In this study, an ejector was designed to recirculate the anodic off-gas of SOFC, and a parametric study of the system performance was conducted at various ejector entrainment ratios. Aspen Plus, a chemical engineering program, was used to calculate the operational conditions of the ejector. To minimize the calculation load of the CFD and to ensure the global optimum, a genetic algorithm and Kriging model were used for the optimization. The optimization results showed that the dominant design variables of the sonic ejector are the throat diameter and the first flow nozzle position. The designed ejector has enough flexibility for different operating conditions of a 1-kW SOFC system. When the ejector was applied to the SOFC, it reduced 56% of the steam and 8.4% of the fuel compared to the reference case.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.24-27
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• 2007

한국에너지기술연구원에서는 가정용 고분자연료전지 열병합 발전시스템을 위한 통합형 천연가스 연료처리 시스템을 개발해 왔다. 본 고에서는 연료처리 시스템의 운전 시 모사 연료극 가스 공급이 미치는 영향에 대해 고찰하고, 부하 변동 시 각 단위 공정의 온도 변화와 CO 농도 변화 현상에 대처하기 위한 방법을 제시하고자 한다.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.92.1-92.1
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• 2011

Anode off-gas of high temperature fuel cells such as MCFC contains a significant amount of combustible components like hydrogen, carbon monoxide and methane according to fuel utilization ratio of the fuel cell stack. Thus, it is important to fully burn anode off-gas and utilize the generated heat in order to increase system efficiency and reduce emissions as well. In the present study, 25 kW catalytic combustor has been developed for the application to a load-following 300kW MCFC system. Mixing and combustion characteristics have been experimentally investigated with the catalytic combustor. Since the performance of catalytic combustor directly depends on the combustion catalyst, this study has been focused on the experimental investigation on the combustion characteristics of multiple catalysts having different structures and compositions. Results show that the exhaust emissions are highly dependent on the catalyst loading and the ratio of catalytic components. Test results at load-following conditions are also shown in the present study.