Small-scale hydrogen generation - prospectives for industrial process gas and fuel cells

摘要

Small-scale reforming of hydrocarbons can pave the way to broad use of hydrogen as energy carrier and fuel.Moreover,it is an enabling technology for the market penetration of fuel cells.The last years are characterised by big efforts and innovations in developing small-scale units.From the technological as well as from the commercial point of view,there are no severe hurdles for the broad market introduction."On-site" hydrogen generators have been operated since thousands of hours at hydrogen fuelling stations.The modular design of the FLOX~R reformer modular allows flexibility in capacity and application.First of all,these,which do not require pure hydrogen could reach commercial competitiveness by an innovative hydrogen supply.In the field of PEM fuel cells,the time is ripe for product development.Compared with an hydrogen fuelled fuel cell,the reformer extends the applications and increases the customer's benefit.The FLOX? reformer compact with integrated feed gas aspiration,CO-Shift and reformate cooling demonstrates in a 4-kW fuel cell system its functionality and specific benefits,mainly in minimising the required BOP components and compactness.A down-scaling to 1 kW is addressed and straightforward.The "window of opportunities" for German companies,especially start-ups and SME seems to be still open,although the world-wide competition,accelerated by huge amounts of public funding and venture capital is strong.