• 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.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers P
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• v.58 no.4
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• pp.639-643
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• 2009

A reformer, which produces hydrogen from natural gas, plays a major role for producing quality hydrogen to fuel-cell system. In this paper, fuel processor is designed to deliver hydrogen(75%) from the reformer to 200W fuel-cell system, and the electrical output power of the fuel-cells is examined by being injected different hydrogen concentrations to the system. We verified that the output power characteristics of the fuel-cells with 75% reformed hydrogen was lower about 7% than the case of pure hydrogen supplied. The type of reformer in this experiment takes SMR(Steam methane reforming) process, and the temperature variation characteristics of reforming process by reactions are examined in operation.

• 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.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.229-237
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• 2005

A new burner configuration for a compact fuel-cell reformer with a high-temperature air combustion concept was numerically studied. The burner was designed for a 40 $Nm^3/hr$ hydrogen-generated reformer using natural gas-steam reforming method. In order to satisfy the primary requirements for designing a reformer burner (uniform distribution of temperature along the fuel processor walls and minimum heat losses from the reformer), the features of the present burner configuration included 1) a self-regenerative burner for an exhaust-gas-recirculation to apply for the high-temperature air combustion concept, and 2) an annular-type shield for protecting direct contact of flame with the processor walls. For the injection velocities of the recirculated gas of 0.6-2.4 m/s, the recirculated gas temperature of 1000 K, and the recirculated oxygen mole fraction of 4%, the temperature distributions along the processor walls were found uniform within 100 K variation. Thus, the present burner configuration satisfied the requirement for reducing temperature gradients along the processor walls, and consequently demonstrated that the high-temperature air combustion concept could be applied to the practical fuel reformers for use of fuel cells. The uniformity of temperature distribution is enhanced as the amount of the recirculated gas increases.

• 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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• 2010.11a
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• pp.91.1-91.1
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• 2010

The Reforming system is an effective method to generate hydrogen which uses for fuel cell system. The purpose of this study is to present characteristics of an autothermal reformer at various operating conditions and to investigate ideal conditions for reforming efficiency. Dominant chemical reactions are Full Combustion, Steam Reforming reaction, Water-Gas Shift reaction and Direct Steam Reforming reaction. Operating parameters of the autothermal reformer are inlet temperature, Oxygen to Carbon Ratio, Steam to Carbon Ratio and Gas Hourly Space Velocity. Autothermal reformer is filled with catalysis of a packbed-bed type. Using numerical approach, we have investigated on various reaction conditions.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Combustion
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.34-43
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• 2014

The reformer system is a method for hydrogen production from hydrocarbon fuels such as natural gas under high temperature environment($about{\sim}1,000^{\circ}C$). The premixed swirl burner with mixing swirler and combustion swirler designed to deliver fuel cell electric output from 0.5 kW to 1.5 kW. Premixed swirl burner experiments using natural gas and mixture of natural gas and anode off gas were carried out to analyse flame patterns and stability by equivalence ratio respectively. The results show that the stable swirl flame can be established for all cases of fuels type using the premixed swirl burner. The swirl flame had a wide stability region and it showed very low CO(50 ppm) and $NO_x$(20 ppm) emission at different fuel type and various equivalence ratio conditions. The operating range of premixed swirl burner for stable swirl flame is found to exist between equivalence ratio of 0.70 to 0.90 for turn down ratio of 3:1.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.41-44
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• 2007

Steam reforming reaction of natural gas is an important process for fuelcell commercialization. In this paper, steam reforming reaction is studied by numerical method. Pseudo-homogeneous model is incorporated for chemical reactions and one medium approach is used to take into account thermally equilibrium phenomena between catalyst and bulk gas. The model is validated with our experimental results under the same operating conditions. Because performance of reformer has relation to heat flux from wall, heat flux profiles was investigated by using Nusselt number. Value of Nusselt number in steam reformer is larger than one in channel, which does not have chemical reaction because steam reforming reaction is an endothermic reaction. When the difference of Nusselt number at the front and the rear is larger, performance is improved.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.35-45
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• 2003

Polymer electrolyte fuel cells(PEFC) have been considered to be a suitable candidate for residential, portable and mobile applications, due to their high efficiency and power density, even at low operating temperature. KIER developed a 5kW class PEFC system for residential application and operated the system for over 1,000 hours. To develop a 5kW PEFC system, performance of a cell was improved through successive tests of single cell of small and large area. Fabrication of three 2,5 kW class stacks, design and fabrication of natural gas reformer, design of auxiliary equipments such as DC/DC converter, DC/AC inverter and humidifying units were carried out along with integration of components, operation and evaluation of total system. During the development period from 1999 to 2001, MEA(membrane electrode assembly) fabrication technologies, design and fabrication technologies for separators, stacking technologies and so on were developed, thereby providing basis for developing stacks of higher efficiency and power density in the future. Experience of development of natural gas reformer opened possibilities to use various kinds of fuels. Main results obtained from the development of a 5kW class PEFC system for residential application are summarized.