Autothermal reforming of gasoline for fuel cell applications: Controller design and analysis

In this work, we address the control system options available to an autothermal reforming (ATR) reactor. The targeted application is within an on-board fuel processor for a hydrogen-fed low-temperature fuel cell. The feedback controller employs air feed rate as the manipulated variable and a measurement of catalyst temperature as the control variable. Disturbances include significant fluctuations in the measured temperature as well as large throughput changes, owning to the on-board application. Our investigation includes an analysis of a simple feedback configuration as well as feed-forward control structure. It is concluded that the feedback only method is insufficient for the unique challenges associated with on-board operation, which include fast start-up and quick load changes. While the feed-forward configuration improves performance, we found a fair amount of sensitivity with respect to model mismatch. The general conclusion is that some form of advanced control will be needed to meet the stringent performance requirements of the on-board fuel processor application.