Development of a novel partial oxidation reactor for natural gas and integration into a micro CHP SOFC system

Project Information

Grant agreement ID: JOE3970060

Project closed

Start date 1 December 1997

End date 30 November 1999

Funded under

• Specific programme for research and technological development, including demonstration in the field of non-nuclear energy, 1994-1998

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

No data

Coordinated by

GASTEC NV
Netherlands

CORDIS provides links to public deliverables and publications of HORIZON projects.

Links to deliverables and publications from FP7 projects, as well as links to some specific result types such as dataset and software, are dynamically retrieved from OpenAIRE .

Deliverables

Development of a novel partial oxidation reactor for natural gas and integration into a micro SOFC system

The general objective of the project is the introduction of Catalytic Partial Oxidation (CPO) of natural gas with air as a fuel processing step for small high efficient (0.5 to 3 kWe) Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC) systems with the aim to simplify the actual system and therewith reducing the costs. The development of the CPO unit in combination with the SOFC system, should lead to the development of a compact, highly efficient and highly integrated Combined Heat and Power (CHP) application. A system that can be competitive in efficiency and compactness will enlarge the market opportunities and improve the competitive market position of the partners. In order to introduce Catalytic Partial Oxidation (CPO) as a fuel-processing step for small scale SOFC, CPO reactor design parameters were formulated. Subsequently, a pre-design was made to evaluate the technical options and to build a first prototype fuel processing system. A computer model was used to help with the design of the CPO reactor and to reduce the time and cost of developing the prototype reactor. Simultaneously, catalyst screening and testing was done in order to determine the most suitable catalysts for the CPO reaction as well as for the desulphurisation of the natural gas. The latter exists of a system with two different catalysts, one being a sulphur oxidation catalyst and the second a SO2 absorber. Promising catalysts were characterised, optimised and produced. Further, the operating ranges of the catalysts were determined. Furthermore, a test rig was constructed at the laboratories of Gaz de France. This rig was built in such a way that it was possible to execute preliminary tests of some sandwich cells and to evaluate the electrochemical performances of these sandwich cells when fed with gas mixtures that are expected to be generated by a CPO reactor.