PEM Fuel Cell Power Plant Research Articles

Performance evaluation of an energy recovery system for fuel reforming of PEM fuel cell power plants

This paper describes an energy recovery system that recovers waste thermal energy from a fuel cell stack and uses it for fuel reforming purposes. The energy recovery system includes a throttling valve, a heat exchanger, and a compressor, and is coupled with a coolant loop of the fuel cell stack. The feed stock of a fuel reformer, which is primarily a mixture of water and fuel, is vaporized in the heat exchanger and is compressed to a sufficiently high pressure before it is ducted into the fuel reformer. The performance of a fuel cell power plant equipped with the energy recovery system is evaluated. The results indicate that the power plant efficiency can be increased by more than 40% compared to that of a fuel cell power plant without the energy recovery system. Additionally, up to 90% of the waste heat generated in the fuel cell stack is recovered. As a result, the required heat dissipation capacity of the radiator that is used for cooling the fuel cell stack can be drastically reduced.