Reforming in Plate Heat-Exchanger Reactors

An early proposal to apply coated catalyst systems for reforming applications, which is not yet heading for mobile fuel cell systems, was made by Ramshaw more than 20 years ago [466]. 

A significant pressure drop is to be expected for such a system in practical use compared with catalyst coatings. A cross-flow arrangement was applied, which is also questionable, because temperature mal-distributions are inevitable. 

Two different concepts for natural gas pre-reformers for solid oxide fuel cells were developed by Meusinger et cd. [39]. Steam reforming was applied and thus a homogeneous burner was used to supply heat to the reforming reaction. The first concept 

Subsequently, Peters et al. continued these investigations. Their natural gas feed contained, besides methane, ethane, propane and butane, also 0.11 vol.% pentane and 0.1 vol.% higher hydrocarbons. Feed pre-heating, water evaporation and superheating to a temperature between 350 and 400 ° C was supplied with energy from the hot off-gas of a catalytic burner. The pre-reformer was then operated at temperatures between 536 and 785 °C. Around 20% methane conversion was achieved in the reactor, while the ethane conversion ranged between 40 and 50%. 

These problems could have been removed by flow-channels in the micro-scale, because they act as flame arrestors (see Section 6.3.2). 

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