Technical Assessment of Different Operating Conditions of an On-Board Autothermal Reformer for Fuel Cell Vehicles

Laura Tribioli, Raffaello Cozzolino and Daniele Chiappini
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Laura Tribioli: Department of Engineering, Niccolò Cusano University, via Don Carlo Gnocchi 3, 00166 Rome, Italy
Raffaello Cozzolino: Department of Engineering, Niccolò Cusano University, via Don Carlo Gnocchi 3, 00166 Rome, Italy
Daniele Chiappini: Department of Engineering, Niccolò Cusano University, via Don Carlo Gnocchi 3, 00166 Rome, Italy

Energies, 2017, vol. 10, issue 7, 1-17

Abstract: This paper evaluates the performance of a fuel cell/battery vehicle with an on-board autothermal reformer, fed by different liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon fuels. A sensitivity analysis is performed to investigate the system behavior under the variation of the steam to carbon and oxygen to carbon ratios. This is done in order to identify the most suitable operating conditions for a direct on-board production of hydrogen to be used in a high temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell. The same system should be able to process different fuels, to allow the end-user to freely decide which one to use to refuel the vehicle. Hence, the obtained operating conditions result in a trade-off between system flexibility as the feeding fuel changes, CO poisoning effect on the fuel cell and overall efficiency. The system is thus coupled to a high temperature fuel cell, modeled by means of a self-made tool, able to reproduce the polarization curve as the input syngas composition varies, and the overall system is afterwards tested on a plug-in fuel cell/battery vehicle simulator, in order to provide a thorough feasibility analysis, focusing on the entire system efficiency. Results show that a proper energy management strategy can mitigate the effect of the fuel variation on the reformer efficiency, allowing for good overall powertrain performance.

Keywords: on-board hydrogen production; hydrocarbons autothermal reforming; high temperature proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell; fuel cell vehicle (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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