• Journal of the Korean Society of Combustion
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.14-21
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• 2006

In this study, syngas which is reformed from fossil fuel and has hydrogen as a major component, was added to a gasoline engine to improve combustion stability and exhaust emissions of idle state. Syngas fraction of the total supplied fuel varied to 0 %, 25 %, 50 % with various ignition timing and excess air ratio. Combustion stability, exhaust emissions, fuel consumption and exhaust gas temperature were measured to investigate the effects of syngas addition on idle performance. Results showed that syngas has ability to widely extend lean operation limit and ignition retard range with dramatical reduction of engine out emissions. It is supposed that the usage of syngas in the internal combustion engine is an effective solution to meet the future strict emission regulations.

• 한국연소학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.245-251
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• 2005

Recently, fuel reforming technology for the fuel cell vehicle has been applied to internal combustion engines, with various purpose. Syngas which is reformed from fossil fuel has hydrogen as a major component. It has better effort in combustion characteristics such as wide flammability and hig speed flame propagation. In this study, syngas was added to a gasoline engine for the improvement of combustion stability and exhaust emission in idle state. Combustion stability, exhaust emissions, fuel consumption and exhaust gas temperature were measured to investigate the effects of syngas addition on idle performance. Results showed that syngas has ability to extend lean operation limit and ignition retard range. with dramatical reduction of engine out emissions.

• Clean Technology
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.55-64
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• 2020

According to the Korean Renewable Energy 3020 Implementation Plan, the installation capacity of renewable energy is expected to increase whereas technology for storing excess electricity and stabilizing the power supply of renewable energy sources is extremely required. Power-to-Gas is one of energy storage technologies where electricity is converted into gas fuel such as hydrogen and methane. Basically, Power-to-Gas system could be effectively utilized to store excess electricity generated by an imbalance between supply and demand. In this study, the economic feasibility analysis of Power-to-Gas reflecting the domestic situation was carried out. Total revenue requirement method was utilized to estimate the levelized cost of hydrogen. Validation on the economic analysis method in this study was conducted by comparison of the result, which is published by the International Energy Agency. The levelized cost of hydrogen of a 100-MW Power-to-Gas system reflecting the current economic status in Korea is 8,344 won kg^-1. The sensitivity analysis was carried out, applying the main analysis economic factors such as electricity cost, electrolyser cost, and operating year. Based on the sensitivity analysis, the conditions for economic feasibility were suggested by comparing the cost of producing hydrogen using renewable energy with the cost of producing natural gas reformed hydrogen with carbon capture and storage.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.146-152
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• 2016

A combined system with PEMFC and reformer is introduced and optimized for the real use of this kind of system in the future. The hydrogen source to operate the PEMFC system is methanol, which needs two parts of methanol reforming reaction and preferential oxidation (PROX) for the hydrogen fuel process in the combined operation PEMFC system. With the optimized methanol steam reforming condition, we tested PROX reactions in various operation temperature from 170 to 270 ℃ to investigate CO concentration data in the reformed gases. Using these different CO concentration, PEMFC performances are achieved at the combined system. Pt/C and Ru promoted Pt/C were catalysts were used for the anode to compare the stability in CO contained gases. The alloy catalyst of PtRu/C shows higher performance and better resistance to CO than the Pt/C at even high CO amount of 200 ppm, indicating a promotion not only to the activity but also to the CO tolerance. Furthermore, in a system point of view, there is a fluctuation in the PEMFC operation due to the unstable fuel supply. Therefore, we also modified the methanol reforming by a scaled up reactor and pressurization to produce steady operation of PEMFC. The optimized system with the methanol reformer and PEMFC shows a stable performance for a long time, which is providing a valuable data for the PEMFC commercialization.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.236-242
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• 2012

This study has been carried out the experiment for the possibility of biogas reforming using waste heat. The source of this waste heat is the exhaust gas from a small-sized gas engine generator. For recovering the waste heat, Two-stage heat exchanger is manufactured. The two-stage heat exchanger is composed of a heat exchanger for the exhaust gas and a heat exchanger for the water. This two-stage heat exchanger is used for reforming the biogas by means of on-site hydrogen production at the small-sized gas engine generator. The two-stage heat exchanger is coupled with the biogas reformer which is a kind of catalytic reformer. To confirm a heat recovery efficiency of the two-stage heat exchanger, temperature differences of inlet and outlet locations are measured. Also, the variations of syngas concentrations with various biogas flow rates are investigated. As a result using manufactured two-stage heat exchanger, the biogas can be reformed from waste heat recovery. This experiment suggests that the exhaust gas heat exchanger is available for reforming the biogas.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.56-62
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• 2008

A synthetic gas reformed from hydrocarbon-based fuels consists of $H_2$, CO and $N_2$. Hydrogen contained in the synthetic gas is a very useful species in chemical processes, due to its wide flammability range and fast burning speed. The ESGI (Exhaust Synthetic Gas Injection) technology is developed to shorten the light-off time of three way catalysts through combustion of the synthetic gas in the exhaust manifold during the cold start period of SI engines. Before the ESGI technology is applied to the test engine, the authors set a test rig that consists of gas temperature and composition controllers, an exhaust pulse generator and an exhaust manifold with a visualization window, in order to optimize the point and conditions of injection of the synthetic gas. Through measuring burned gas temperatures and taking photographs of synthetic gas combustion at the outlet of the exhaust manifold, the authors tried to find the optimal injection point and conditions. Analysis of burned gas composition has been performed for various $O_2$ concentrations. As a result, when the synthetic gas is injected at the port outlet of the cylinder No. 4 and $O_2$ concentration exceeds 4%, combustion of the synthetic gas is strong and effective in the exhaust manifold.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2016

In this study, CFD model for a Heat Exchange Steam Reformer (HESR) used for a 10kW SOFC system is developed for the design optimization of the HESR. The model is used to explore the effect of design parameters on the performance of the HESR. In the HESR, heat is delivered from the hot gas channel to the fuel channel to supply the heat required for the fuel reforming. In the fuel channel where the fuel is reformed, thermo-fluid dynamics, heat transfer, and chemical reaction are considered to predict the performance of the reformer. The model is validated with experimental data within 2~3% error. The validated model is used for the parametric study of the HESR design. Channel length, channel diameter, and flow direction are selected as the design parameters. The effects of the HESR design parameters on the outlet temperature, outlet H2 mole fraction, and pressure drop across the reformer are presented using the model.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.731-734
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• 2009

KIER has been developed a compact and highly efficient fuel processor which is one of the key component of the residential PEM fuel cells system. The fuel processor uses methane steam reforming to convert natural gas to a mixture of water, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and unreacted methane. Then carbon monoxide is converted to carbon dioxide in water-gas-shift reactor and preferential oxidation reactor. A start-up time of the fuel processor is about 1h and CO concentration among the final product is maintained less than 5 vol. ppm. To achieve high thermal efficiency of 80% on a LHV basis, an optimal thermal network was designed. Internal heat exchange of the fuel processor is so efficient that the temperature of the reformed gas and the flue gas at the exit of the fuel processor remains less than $100^{\circ}C$. A compact design considering a mixing and distribution of the feed was applied to reduce the reactor volume. The current volume of the fuel processor is 17L with insulation.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.66-72
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• 2008

Fuel reforming technology for the fuel cell vehicles could be adopted to internal combustion engine for the reduction of engine out emissions. Since syngas which is reformed from fossil fuel has hydrogen as a major component, it has abilities to enhance the combustion characteristics with wide flammability and high speed flame propagation. In this paper, syngas was feed to 2.0 liter gasoline engine during the cold start and early state of idle condition. Not only cold start HC emission but also $NO_x$ emission could be dramatically reduced due to the fact that syngas has no HC and has nitrogen up to 50% as components. Exhaust gas temperature was lower than that of gasoline feeding condition. Delayed ignition timing, however, resulted in increased exhaust gas temperature approximated to gasoline condition. It is supposed that the usage of syngas in the gasoline internal combustion engine is an effective solution to meet the future strict emission regulations by the reduction of cold start THC and $NO_x$ emissions.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.30 no.9 s.252
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• pp.850-857
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• 2006

Hydrogen production using current fueling facilities is essential for near-term applications of fuel cells. A preliminary process for developing a natural gas autothermal reforming (ATR) reactor for fuel cells is presented in this paper. A experimental reactor for methane ATR was constructed and used for characterization of Jin reactor. Temperature profiles of the reactor were observed, and reformed gas compositions were analyzed to evaluate efficiency, conversion and reaction heat with varying amounts of $O_2/CH_4$ at selected furnace temperature and $H_2O/CH_4$. The amount of $O_2/CH_4$ showed strong offsets on reactor temperature, efficiency and conversion indicating that $O_2/CH_4$ is a crucial operation condition. Operation conditions which result in thermal neutrality of ATR reactor system were determined for two cases of an ATR system based on the estimation of enthalpy difference between reactants of assumed inlet temperatures and the products from experimental results. The determined conditions for thermally neutral operations could be used for guidelines to design reformers and for determining the operation parameters of a self sustaining ATR reactor.