Fuel cell feed system based on H2 production by a compact multi-fuel catalytic ATR reactor

Hydrogen fuel cells seem the most viable solution to the pollution reduction and the energy growing demand. Very compact and small size production plant for distribute H₂ production may reduce hydrogen transport and storage difficulties. Due to the high reactor compactness and thermal self-sustainability, the auto-thermal reforming (ATR) reaction of gaseous and liquid hydrocarbons can be the optimal solution. Fossil hydrocarbons like methane, gasoline and diesel still remain the favourite feed for catalytic auto-thermal reformer, due to the widespread existing delivery pipelines and the high energy density. Unfortunately, due to the different characteristics of liquid and gaseous fuels, it's very difficult to realize a multi-fuel processor characterized by high performances in terms of thermal efficiency and hydrogen yield, and, up to now, very low number of papers dealing with multi-fuel reformers is present in the literature.