• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.54-61
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• 2004

Temperature characteristics in a stack of molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) have been investigated with simulation based on the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes and experimental way. The MCFC has generally two stack structures when the natural gas is used as fuel; one is the external reforming type and the other is internal reforming type. Computer simulation at the external reforming stack suggests that the maximum temperature in the stack depends on the gas flow length. The 2 kW MCFC stack with 25 cm gas flow length showed about $675^\circ{C}$ of maximum temperature.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.615-622
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• 2004

Recently, the hybrid system combining fuel cell and gas turbine has drawn much attention owing to its high efficiency and ultra low emission. It is now on the verge of world wide development and various system configurations have been proposed. A national project funded by Korean government has also been initiated to develop a pressurized hybrid system. This work aims at presenting design performance analysis for various possible system configurations as an initial step for the system development. Study focuses are given to major design options including the power ratio between gas turbine and fuel cell, reforming method (internal or external), reforming heat source (reforming burner, cathode hot air, fuel cell heat release) and steam supply method for reformer (anode gas recirculation, external steam generator). A wide variation in performance among different configurations has been predicted.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.3-8
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• 2008

Effect of external heating rate on the conversion efficiency for the steam reforming of methanol is investigated numerically considering both heat and mass transfer of the species in a packed bed microreactor. In a results from the numerical simulation, the conversion efficiency of methanol has been obtained for the external heating rate. The axial variation of mole fraction of methanol has been additionally presented for several cases of external heating rates. The results show that for the constant inlet temperature condition the conversion efficiency of methanol increases with external heating rate over the range of operating conditions.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.473-481
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• 2007

Compared to other types of fuel cells, SOFC has advantages like a wide output range and the direct use of hydrocarbon fuel without the process of external reforming. Particularly because the direct use of fuel without reforming reaction is closely linked to overall system efficiency, it is a very attractive advantage. We tried the operation with methane. However, although methane has a small number of carbons compared to other hydrocarbon fuels, our experiment found the deposition of carbon on the surface of the SOFC electrode. To overcome the problem, we tried the operation through activating internal reforming. The reason that internal reforming was possible was that SOFC runs at high temperature compared to other fuel cells and its electrode is made of Ni, which functions as a catalyst favorable for steam reforming.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.112-116
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• 2011

In this paper, a preconverter of MCFC for an emergence electric power supplier is numerically simulated to increase the hydrogen production from natural gas (methane). Commercial code is used to simulated the porous catalyst with user subroutine to model three dominant chemical reactions which are Stream Reforming(SR), Water-Gas Shift(WGS), and Direct Stram Reforming(DSR). To get 10% fuel conversion rate in preconverter. the required external heat flux is supplied from outer wall of preconverter. The calculated results show that very nonuniform temperature distribution and chemical reaction happen near the wall of preconverter. These phenomena can be explained by the low heat conductivity of porous catalyst and the endothermic reforming reaction.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.363-371
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• 2022

In this study, the operation characteristics of the internal reforming type molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) were studied using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis according to the steam to carbon ratio (S/C ratio), operating temperature, and gas utilization. From the simulation results, the distribution of gas composition due to the electrochemical reaction and the reforming reaction was predicted. The internal reforming type showed a lower temperature difference than the external reforming type MCFC. As the operating temperature decreased, less hydrogen was produced and the performance of the fuel cell also decreased. As the gas utilization rate decreased, more gas was injected into the same reaction area, and thus the performance of the fuel cell increased.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1989.10a
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• pp.395-398
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• 1989

A two dimensional pseudo-homogeneous model for the methanol reforming reaction was developed and its steady and dynamic states were studied by a computer simulation. The reactor tube diameter, the catalyst density in the fixed bed, the feed flow rate, the feed temperature and the external temperature were chosen to be adjusted to determine the length of the reactor. The dynamics of the reactor showed that the system was highly nonlinear and sensitive to the feed disturbances.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.16 no.11
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• pp.1021-1027
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• 2004

Design performances of various configurations of hybrid systems combining an atmospheric pressure molten carbonate fuel cell and a gas turbine have been analyzed. Two different fuel reforming methods (internal and external reforming) were considered. Influences of turbine inflow heating method, location of fuel combustor and associated component arrangements were investigated. In general, internal reforming leads to higher system efficiencies. The optimum design pressure ratio varies among different system configurations. In particular, the design point selection is closely related to the allowable turbine inlet temperature. Configurations with direct heating of turbine inlet flow may realize both higher efficiency and higher specific power than those with indirect heating.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.720-722
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• 2009

This work is mainly focused at developing the hydrogen production unit with the capacity of 20 $Nm^3/h$ of high purity hydrogen. At present steam reforming of natural gas is the preferable method to produce hydrogen at the point of production cost. The developed hydrogen production unit composed of natural gas reformer and pressure swing adsorption system. To improve the thermal efficiency of steam reforming reactor, the internal heat recuperating structure was adopted. The heat contained in reformed gas which comes out of the catalytic beds recovered by reaction feed stream. These features of design reduce the fuel consumption into burner and the heat duty of external heat exchangers, such as feed pre-heater and steam generator. The production rate of natural gas reformer was 41.7 $Nm^3/h$ as a dryreformate basis. The composition of PSA feed gas was $H_2$ 78.26%, $CO_2$ 18.49%, CO 1.43% and $CH_4$ 1.85%. The integrated production unit can produce 21.1 $Nm^3/h$ of high-purity hydrogen (99.997%). The hydrogen production efficiency of the developed unit was more than 58% as an LHV basis.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.1-12
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• 2023

In this study, an efficient one-dimensional model was developed for predicting microchannel steam/methane reformers with thin washcoat catalyst layers with a focus on low-pressure reforming conditions suitable for distributed hydrogen production systems for fuel cell applications. The governing equations for steam/methane mixture gas flowing through the microchannel reformer were derived considering the species conservation with reforming reactions and energy conservation with external convective heat supply. The reaction rates for the developed model were simply determined through the catalyst effectiveness factor correlations instead of performing complicated calculations for the steam/methane reforming process occurring inside the washcoat catalyst layers. The accuracy of the developed was verified by comparing the results obtained herein with those obtained by the detailed computational fluid dynamics calculation for the same microchannel reformer.