Evaluation of Lab Tests of the Internal Reformation of Desulfurized Diesel Fuelin an MCFC Test Stack

摘要

Starting with the known capability of DFC stacks to internally reform natural gas(CH4), the fuel vaporization and judicious breaking of the carbon bond in the more complex diesel type fuel molecule (represented typically as C7H14) was addressed. Free carbon could potentially load up the reformer passages and is thus to be avoided. Following careful testing of numerous sub scale vaporization, fuel conditioning and reforming techniques, the most appropriate thermochemical means was derived by the AEL test subcontractor Energy Research Corporation (ERC). It consists of a combined fuel vaporizer and adiabatic fuel conditioner column which, in effect, creates synthesized CH4 molecules from the heavier hydrocarbon and then steam reforms the synthesis gas in the plate type reformer within the stack using the heat from the fuel cell stack. The demonstration was successfully carried out in August 1992 for 400 hours under the Navy contract plus an additional 200 hours under a contract from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). The equipment was then to be dismantled and the internal characteristics of the reformer and the DFC test stack analyzed and evaluated to determine whether any life-limiting phenomena had occurred.