Results for a Fuel Cell System Consisting of an SOFC Fed by an Adiabatic Pre-Reforming Fuel Processor With European Standard Road Diesel

In the near future, ships will need more efficient power generation technologies for auxiliary power supply than those used currently. In the project SchiffsIntegration BrennstoffZelle (SchIBZ), a fuel cell system is being developed to increase the electrical efficiency of on-board power supply systems. In order to avoid the limitation of hydrogen storage, the on-site fuel processing of hydrocarbons offered an opportunity for the hydrogen supply of fuel cell systems to be operated in remote locations. As fuel standard European road diesel was processed with the process of adiabatic prereforming, a steam-reforming derivate. A solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) was coupled with this fuel processor and was fed with standard European diesel fuel. Two flexible test rigs were developed to test the fuel processor and the SOFC either combined or independently. During combined operation, the SOFC modules were fed with feedstock gas from the fuel processor, which ran on standard European diesel fuel. Combined operation of both test rigs at steady state was achieved for more than 1000 h. For the whole experimental runtime, the fuel processor delivered sufficient feedstock quality for the SOFC, and no significant voltage degradation (about 0.5 %) of the SOFC modules was observed over 1000 h of operation. This low value of degradation is known for the operation of SOFC with pure hydrogen and methane without impurities.