Emission-free fuel reformers for mobile and portable fuel cell applications

Conventional fuel reformers are complex, multi-component devices which produce large amounts of CO2 emissions. The main objective of this work is to develop an efficient, compact and emission-free fuel reformer for mobile and portable fuel cell (FC) applications. The concept is based on single-stage catalytic pyrolysis of hydrocarbon fuels into hydrogen-rich gas and carbon products. This approach allows to eliminate the production of carbon oxides (CO and CO2) and, consequently, the need for the water–gas shift (WGS) and gas separation stages which significantly simplifies the process. The paper presents the experimental results of CO2-free production of hydrogen-rich gas via catalytic pyrolysis of hydrocarbon fuels (propane, methane and gasoline). The perspectives of CO2-free fuel reformers for mobile and portable fuel cell applications are discussed in this paper.