The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 28, 2006
Filed:
Mar. 11, 2002
Michael S. Hsu, Lincoln, MA (US);
Michael S. Hsu, Lincoln, MA (US);
Ztek Corporation, Woburn, MA (US);
Abstract
A miniature vaporizer for effectively vaporizing a process fluid (e.g., a liquid media) in small energy system applications, such as systems employing chemical reformers and fuel cells. The vaporizer of the present invention can employ a heating medium, such as a hot exhaust generated by a power system, as the heating source for generating steam or for evaporating a fluid (e.g., liquid chemicals or fuels). The vaporizer of the invention can optionally be configured to vaporize water thereby functioning as a miniature steam generator, to evaporate a process fluid thereby functioning as a miniature evaporator or heat exchanger, or to evaporate a process fluid and mix the fluid with another medium. This evaporator/mixer configuration can be used in reformer plants where a liquid chemical or fuel (e.g., gasoline, diesel, methanol, etc.) needs to be first evaporated and mixed with steam prior to the introduction of the resultant mixture to a converter (e.g., reformor or fuel cell).