Plasmatron reformers are being developed at MIT and ArvinMeritor [1]. In these reformers a special low power electrical discharge is used to promote partial oxidation conversion of hydrocarbon fuels into hydrogen and CO. The partial oxidation reaction of this very fuel rich mixture is difficult to initiate. The plasmatron provides continuous enhanced volume initiation. To minimize electrode ero...

We studied steam reforming of ethanol at room temperature and atmospheric pressure using low energy pulse (LEP) discharge. In this study, we employed characteristic novel reformer, one electrode was made of carbon fibers (o.d. 7.0 μm) bundle. So fuel was supplied to discharge region by capillary action of the fibers and reformed directly by LEP plasma without any pump or heater. When using this...

In this work, we introduce a furnace-balancing scheme that generates an optimal furnace-side feed distribution that has the potential to improve the thermal efficiency of a reformer. The furnace-balancing scheme is composed of four major components: data generation, model identification, a model-based furnace-balancing optimizer and a termination checker. Initially, a computational fluid dynami...

Fuel cells have been recognized as a feasible alternative to current IC engines. A significant technical problem yet to be resolved is the on bound fuel supply before fuel cells can be practically used for vehicles. Use of an on-board fuel reformer can mitigate the fuel supply issue. In particular, using a diesel engine as on-board fuel reformer, combined with a fuel cell, is a strong candidate...

I n 1747, Gerhard van Swieten (1700-1772), personal physician to Empress Maria Theresia and reformer of medical education in Austria, founded a bonne école de chirurgie in Vienna. He invited the Florentine Natalis Giuseppe Pallucci (1719-1797), whom he had specially trained in Paris, France, to Vienna to assist him with the school. However, although van Swieten was highly successful as a reform...

Converting remote natural gas to liquid fuel is one possible solution to the problem of transporting remote gas to the energy market. However, the high investment cost of gas-to-liquid (GTL) plants prevents large scale exploitation of remote gas reserves. A lean GTL is suggested based on an autothermal reformer with enriched air as oxidant and a once-through Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. In order ...

HIGH FUEL CONVERSION RATE AND HYDROGEN PRODUCTION YIELD Hsueh-Sheng Wang, Yu-Chuan Su*, Yuh-Jeen Huang and Fan-Gang Tseng * Department of Engineering and System Science, Department of Biomedical Engineering and Environmental Sciences, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan, ROC ABSTRACT In this article, a low-temperature partial-oxidation-mode (POM) micro methanol reformer with the ...

2 ABSTRACT A model for the chemistry in a plasma fuel reformer or plasmatron has been developed. The plasma fuel reformer is set up to produce syngas (hydrogen and carbon monoxide gas mixture) from partial oxidation of hydrocarbons. The behavior of methane as fuel has been investigated to characterize and simulate the plasmatron performance. The goal of this work has been improved understanding...