Abstract
A membrane reformer equipped with palladium membranes has been developed. Palladium alloy, which allows only hydrogen to pass through, is fabricated into membranes and used in the reformer for direct production of high-purity hydrogen from city gas. The operation test of the membrane reformer have demonstrated that the hydrogen production rate of 14 Nm^3h^<-1> as had been designed, the product hydrogen purity of over 99.999%, and stable unmanned continuous operation of over 1,000 hours. These results have led us to believe that the membrane reformer can suitably be applied to fuel processor systems for polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFC) and hydrogen refueling stations for fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV).
