Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Yoshimasa Negishi

Masaaki Yamaoka

Masayoshi Taki

Kenji Kimura

Kyo Hattori

Seiji Mizuno

Shigeto Kajiwara

Tatsuya Kawahara

Shigeru Ogino

Hiromi Tanaka

Toshiaki Ozaki

Yasuhiro Nobata

Katsuhiko Kinoshita

Norihiko Saito

Kazumasa Takada

Akihisa Nishimura

Masatsune Kondo

Atsushi Takumi

Hideo Taguchi

Ryuhei Isogawa

The present invention is directed to a fuel reformer device that produces a hydrogen rich gas from a hydrocarbon and steam. The steam reforming reaction that produces the hydrogen rich gas from the hydrocarbon and steam is endothermic. A known technique supplies heat required for the steam reforming reaction by an exothermic oxidation reaction proceeding in parallel with the steam reforming reaction. This known technique may, however, cause an excessive temperature rise in an area of the vigorous oxidation reaction in the fuel reformer device. A reformer unitincluding a Cu&#x2014;Zn catalyst receives a supply of a crude fuel gas containing the air flown through a second fuel supply conduit. The crude fuel gas is subjected to the steam reforming reaction and the oxidation reaction proceeding inside the reformer unit. A resulting hydrogen rich gaseous fuel is discharged to a third fuel supply conduit. The reformer unitincludes an upper stream reaction unitand a lower stream reaction unit. Both the reaction unitsandhave honeycomb structures, wherein the total sectional area of the flow path in the upper stream reaction unitis made smaller than the total sectional area of the flow path in the lower stream reaction unit. This arrangement causes the gas flowing through the reformer unitto have the higher flow velocity on the upstream side than on the downstream side. The higher flow velocity on the upstream side extends the area of the vigorous oxidation reaction to the lower stream portion and enables the heat generated on the upstream side to be effectively transmitted to the lower stream portion. This arrangement thus effectively prevents an excessive temperature rise on the upstream side.

Fuel reformer device

The invention constructs a system which vaporizes a liquid raw material in a vaporizing section and steam-reforms the vaporized raw material in a reforming section to generate hydrogen. A pressure regulating valve for regulating the pressure in the vaporizing section is disposed at anywhere from the vaporizing section to downstream of the reforming section. When a hydrogen requirement is increased, the pressure regulating valve is controlled to decrease the pressure in the vaporizing section. The pressure reduction makes it possible to promote vaporization in the vaporizing section such that the rate of generation of steam can be improved. Moreover, during start-up of the system, the control mode is changed to open the pressure regulating valve, thereby limiting the rate of increase in pressure just after the generation of reformed gas has started.

Hydrogen generating system

A fuel reformer suited for mounting on a vehicle is provided. A raw material gas containing methanol and water is vaporized at a vaporization section The vaporized gas flows horizontally to a reforming section with monolithic catalyst The reforming section is divided into two sides, a front side and a rear side with an interconnecting pipe bent at 180 degrees, for connecting the front and rear sides. By making the material gas flow horizontally, even when the reformer is mounted to a vehicle which has a larger space in its horizontal direction than in its vertical direction, especially a small passenger car, the contact time period between gas and catalyst can be extended. By bending the reforming section by 180 degrees, the size of the reformer can be reduced so that the reformer is suited for mounting on a vehicle having limited space. Because the vaporization section and the CO reducing section can be placed adjacent to each other, by using heat generated at the CO reducing section, the heat loss during pre-heating of the methanol and water can be reduced.

Fuel reformer for mounting on a vehicle

Methanol supplied as a raw fuel is mixed with water, vaporized in an evaporator 24, and supplied to a reformer 22 as a raw fuel gas. The reformer 22 also receives a supply of the compressed air from an air tank 36. The raw fuel gas is mixed with the compressed air in the reformer 22. An oxidation reaction of methanol supplied as the raw fuel proceeds in the reformer 22 to generate hydrogen and carbon dioxide, while a steam reforming reaction of methanol simultaneously proceeds in the reformer 22 to generate hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The amount of heat required for the endothermic reforming reaction can be supplied by the oxidation reaction of methanol. No external heat source is accordingly required in the reformer 22 to supply the heat required for the reforming reaction.

Method of and apparatus for reforming fuel and fuel cell system with

Growing community of inventors

Aichi-ken, Japan

Yoshimasa Negishi