Reactor prototypes, cell

Figure 3. Sublimation rate of naphthalene in various cell-reactor prototypes as influenced...

Current efforts are focusing on optimizing the carbon monoxide removal reactor and developing a system prototype using commercially available pumps, blowers, fuel cells, valves, and controllers.In addition, durability testing along with thermal cycling needs to be done. 

Develop a prototype multi-cell reactor for high throughput evaluation of the electrochemistry of photocatalytic materials... 

Conduct the proof-of-concept demonstration using the laboratory membrane reactor. Carry out the prototype membrane reactor demonstration for a 50 kilowatt (kW) fuel cell. 

The actual trend is thus the demonstration of this kind of reactor at scales larger than laboratory scale. Different European projects are currently investigating such reactors and building prototypes at different scales (see, for instance, DEMCAMER, REFOR-CELL, FERRET, and FLUIDCELL projects). 

Lenz et al. [73] described the development of a 3 kW monolithic steam-supported partial oxidation reactor for jet fuel, which was developed to supply a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC). The prototype reactor was composed of a ceramic honeycomb monolith (400 cpsi) operated between 950 C at the reactor inlet and 700°C at the reactor outlet [74]. The radial temperature gradient amoimted to 50 K which was attributed to inhomogeneous mixing at the reactor inlet. The feed composition corresponded to S/C ratio of 1.75 and O/C ratio of 1.0 at 50 000 h GHSV. Under these conditions, about 12 vol.% of each carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide were detected in the reformate, while methane was below the detection limit. Later, Lenz et al. [74] described a combination of three monolithic reactors coated with platinum/rhodium catalyst switched in series for jet fuel autothermal reforming. An optimum S/C ratio of 1.5 and an optimum O/C ratio of 0.83 were determined. Under these conditions 78.5% efficiency at 50 000 h GHSV was achieved. The conversion did not exceed 92.5%. In the product of these... 

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