Hydrogen-rich gas with low-level CO produced with autothermal methanol reforming providing a real-time supply used to drive a kW-scale PEMFC system

An integrated system was developed to produce hydrogen-rich gas with low-level CO via autothermal reforming (ATR) of methanol for the purpose of real-time use in a kW-scale proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) system. Methanol was converted into a hydrogen-rich gas through ATR in conjunction with water gas shifting (WGS) and preferential oxidation (PrOX) reactors to reduce the CO concentration. A 29.5% hydrogen-rich gas with a CO concentration of approximately 20 ppm was achieved under the optimal parameter settings (i.e., an H2O/CH3OH ratio = 0.5 and an O2/CH3OH ratio = 0.55 for the ATR reaction, an H2O/CO ratio = 5.6 for the WGS reaction, and an O2/CO ratio = 1.08 for the PrOX reaction). Specifically, the reformer system steadily produced low CO, hydrogen-rich gas after 4 h of durability testing. This system was then combined with 40-cell fuel cell stacks with air bleeding and tested for its durability over a period of 6 h. It was verified that the hydrogen-rich gas produced by the reformer system enabled the fuel cell to steadily generate 1040 W of power. Notably, the hydrogen-rich gas (the actual reformate gas) produced herein could generate better performance than the simulated reformate gas reported in the literature. •A methanol autothermal reformer (ATR) H2 production system was developed.•ATR combined with a purifier can significantly reduce CO concentrations.•Hydrogen-rich gas with low CO can successfully drive a PEMFC system.•Durability testing on the integrated reformer system and PEMFCs was conducted.•The PEMFC stack was able to steadily supply approximately 1 kW of power.