Hitachi, Ltd.

Hideo Ohyauchi

Yoshiaki Amano

Eiji Yokoyama

Asao Hanzawa

The present invention relates to a reformer for producing a hydrogen rich gas by reaction of natural gas with steam by a catalytic action with heating, and particularly to the heater in the reformer, where the heating section of the heater is composed of a heating section by burner combustion and a heating section by catalytic combustion, and a stable combustion less susceptible to fluctuations in the feed rate or pressure of fuel or air can be obtained by the catalytic combustion.

Reformer

The air supply apparatus for fuel cell system serves to supply air to the cell cathode and the combustion section of the reformer in the fuel cell system and recover energy from exhaust gases being discharged from the system. The apparatus has a compressor for supply of air to the system, an exhaust gas turbine for driving the compressor through recovery of energy from the system exhaust gas, an auxiliary combustor for compensating deficiency of the energy being recovered, if any, and pipe lines connecting those parts. The auxiliary combustor particularly employs a combustion catalyst in its combustion section. The apparatus secures stable combustion of the fuel gas in the auxiliary combustor, and its operation displays improved stability against any load change or partial load.

Air supply apparatus for fuel cell system

A power generator containing a fuel cell (or cells) characterized by a fuel supply means designed to supply hydrogen gas and oxygen gas to the hydrogen and oxygen feed lines leading to the cell in response to a rapid rise of power load connected to the cell. This power generator suffers from no shortage of output power due to a delay of action and is excellent in responsiveness to sharp rise of load. In a preferred embodiment of this invention, the electrolyte is electrolyzed to produce hydrogen gas and oxygen gas by DC power generated by the fuel cell, and the produced gases are led to the hydrogen and oxygen feed lines leading to the fuel cell.

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Ibaraki, Japan

Hideo Ohyauchi