JPH03116660A - Cooling device of seat for monitor inside fuel reformer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To cool a seat for monitor inside the reformer by means of low operation cost and an equipment of a simple construction by supplying air of each system being supplied to a fuel battery generation device, or a part of exhaust gas from the fuel battery and a reformer burner, to the seat for the inside monitor through a cooler. CONSTITUTION:Air 9a for cooling a seat 17 for an inside monitor is branched in the middle of a pipeline of air 9 for a reformer burner. On the pipe line of air 9a for cooling, a cooler 29 which cools air 9 for the reformer burner having a high temperature to the temperature appropriate for cooling the seat 17 for the inside monitor, and a mist separator 20 for removing moisture which condenses accompanying a drop of air temperature, are provided. A pipe line of nitrogen gas 18 for cooling as a backup is also connected, together with a pipe line of this cooling air 9a, to the seat 17 for the inside monitor. A part of the air 9 for the reformer burner therefore can be used for cooling the seat 17 for the inside, thus remarkably reducing the nitrogen gas 18 amount to be used for cooling.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Object of the Invention] (Industrial Application Field) The present invention relates to a cooling device for a monitoring seat inside a fuel reformer installed in a fuel reforming system of a fuel cell power generation device. .

(, Prior Art) Fuel cell power generation devices, which have been put into practical use in recent years, directly convert the energy contained in fuels such as hydrogen into electrical energy through an electrochemical reaction that occurs within the fuel cell. As long as the fuel and the oxidizing agent such as air are supplied to the fuel cell, electrical energy can be extracted with high conversion efficiency.

Further, this type of fuel cell power generation device is often equipped with a fuel reforming system in order to obtain hydrogen gas as a fuel for the fuel cell by steam reforming a raw material gas such as methane. In such a fuel reforming system reformer, raw material gas such as methane and steam are supplied through a raw material gas line and a steam line to the inside of a reforming reaction tube in which a reforming reaction catalyst layer is provided. The raw material gas is reformed into a hydrogen-rich reformed gas by introducing a mixed gas of The reformed gas is then passed through a -carbon oxide shift converter to form a reformed gas with a higher hydrogen concentration, which is then supplied to a fuel cell as a load.

By the way, an example of the above-mentioned fuel cell power generation device is shown in the third example.
This will be explained using figures. That is, in the fuel reformer 1, there is provided a reforming tube 4 filled with a catalyst for converting the hydrocarbon fuel 2 supplied therein into a hydrogen-rich reformed gas 3 through a steam reforming reaction. ing. This reforming pipe 4 is connected to the fuel cell 1
The remaining hydrogen 6 is sent to the fuel electrode 5 of the fuel cell built in the fuel cell 13 and used for power generation, and the residual hydrogen 6 is sent from the fuel cell 13 to the reformer burner 10 and used as fuel. On the other hand, fuel cell 1
In step 3, oxygen required for power generation is supplied to the air electrode 15 of the fuel cell 13 by boosting the pressure of outside air using the turbo compressor 7. The outlet gas 16 from the air electrode 15 containing residual oxygen is utilized as combustion air for the reformer burner 10. Further, a part of the air pressurized by the turbo compressor 7 is branched from a pipe extending toward the fuel cell 13 side, and is sent to the reformer burner 10 as reformer burner air. A part of the combustion gas from the reformer burner 10 is pressurized by the blower 12 and sent to the fuel cell 13, where it is used as purge gas for the cell container 14.

This fuel reformer 1 is equipped with several seats 17 for combustion status monitoring and gas analysis, but since they are exposed to high temperatures during operation and shutdown, the seats 17 are used to protect the instruments and seats. 17 needs to be cooled down. As a cooling means for the seat 17, in the conventional device, nitrogen gas 18 prepared separately was supplied to the seat 17 portion.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) As mentioned in Section 2, the conventional cooling device for the internal monitoring seat of a fuel reformer uses nitrogen gas, which is difficult to obtain compared to air or combustion exhaust gas, as a cooling gas. The disadvantage was that the operating costs were high. In particular, as the capacity of fuel cell power generation equipment increases, the amount of nitrogen gas used increases,
OMW class equipment reaches 200 to 500 Kg/h, making the operating cost extremely high.''Secondly, there was also the problem of the large size of the nitrogen gas supply equipment.

The present invention solves the problems of the prior art as described above, and provides a fuel reformer internal structure that has a simple configuration, low operating costs, and has excellent reliability comparable to when nitrogen gas is used alone. The object of the present invention is to provide a cooling device for a monitoring seat.

[Configuration of the Invention (Means for Solving the Problems)] In order to achieve the above object, the cooling device for the internal monitoring seat of the fuel reformer of the present invention has the following features: The system is configured to supply the air or a part of the exhaust gas from the fuel cell device or the reformer burner to the internal monitoring seat via a cooler to cool it.

(Function) In the present invention having the above-described configuration, the internal monitoring seat can be cooled using easily available or discarded low-cost gas such as air or exhaust gas. In addition, there is no need to install dedicated cooling gas supply equipment, and the structure of the cooling system can be improved by simply branching off the air or exhaust gas piping required for the fuel cell power generation system and sending it to the internal monitoring seat. is also simplified.

(Example) Hereinafter, an example of the present invention will be specifically described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2. Note that the same members as those in the prior art shown in FIG. 3 are designated by the same reference numerals, and explanations thereof will be omitted.

In FIG. 1, a part of the air 8 pressurized by the turbo compressor 7 is branched from the middle of the pipe on the fuel cell 13 side, and is used as reformer burner air 9 for the reformer burner 1.
It is being sent to 0. Cooling air 9a for internal monitoring monthly production 17 is branched off from the middle of the piping for this reformer burner air 9. On the piping of this cooling air 9a, there is a cooler 19 that cools the high-temperature reformer burner air 9 to a temperature suitable for cooling the internal monitoring unit 17, and a cooler 19 that cools the high-temperature reformer burner air 9 to a temperature suitable for cooling the internal monitoring unit 17. A mist separator 20 is provided to remove condensed moisture. In addition, internal monitoring monthly production of 17
In addition to the cooling air 9a piping, a cooling nitrogen gas 18 piping is also connected as a backup.

In this embodiment having such a configuration, a part of the reformer burner air made by pressurizing the outside air is used for cooling the internal monitoring monthly production, and the expensive nitrogen gas 18 is used for backup. Compared to the case where the internally monitored monthly production is cooled using nitrogen gas alone, the amount of nitrogen gas used for cooling can be significantly reduced. In particular, the source of outside air is inexhaustible, so even if the capacity of a fuel cell power generation device increases and an increase in cooling capacity is desired, this can be easily achieved by simply increasing the capacity of the turbo compressor or the air blowing capacity of the piping. Unlike nitrogen gas, there is no need to increase the size of gas supply equipment.

(Other Embodiments) The present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiments.In addition to branching off a part of the air for the reformer burner, the air for internally monitored monthly cooling may be used for fuel cell power generation. It is also possible to utilize other air systems used in the device, for example a portion of the air for instrumentation control.

Moreover, as shown in FIG. 2, exhaust gas such as reformer burner combustion gas can also be used in addition to air.

That is, in the embodiment shown in FIG. 2, the piping for the reformer burner combustion gas 11 discharged from the fuel reformer 1 and used as purge gas for the battery container 13 is branched after the blower 12 to supply the cooling gas. Take out the lla and put it in the cooler 19.
It is then fed into the reformer internal monitoring seat 17 via the mist separator 20. In this embodiment, the reformer internal monitoring seat 17 can be cooled using an inexpensive gas that is discarded as exhaust gas, similar to the air in the previous embodiment, so that it is possible to cool the reformer internal monitoring seat 17 instead of the conventional Operating costs can be significantly reduced compared to cooling equipment.

In addition, there is no need for large nitrogen gas supply equipment, and it is sufficient to add simple devices such as branch piping and a cooler 19 for cooling, which is excellent in terms of equipment. Furthermore, in this embodiment, since a part of the combustion gas having a lower oxygen concentration than the outside air is used for cooling, there is an advantage that high safety can be ensured as in the case where nitrogen gas is used.

Further, when a backup system using nitrogen gas is provided as in the illustrated embodiment, there is an advantage that reliability during operation is further improved.

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the present invention, since the reformer internal monitoring seat is cooled using the air or exhaust gas from each system used in the fuel cell power generation device, the paper It is possible to provide a cooling device that can cool a monitoring seat inside a reformer with low operating costs and equipment with a simple structure.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 shows the first cooling device for the monitoring seat inside the reformer of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a system diagram showing the configuration of a fuel cell power generation device equipped with an embodiment. FIG. 2 is a system diagram showing a second embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a system diagram showing the configuration of a cooling device in a conventional fuel cell power generation device FIG. 1...Fuel reformer, 2...Hydrocarbon fuel, 3...
- Reformed gas, 4... Reforming tube, 5... Fuel cell fuel electrode, 6... Fuel electrode outlet gas, 7... Turbo compressor, 8... Boosting air, 9... Reforming Air for quality equipment burner,
9a... Cooling air, 10... Reformer burner, 11
...Reformer burner combustion gas, 11a... Cooling gas, 12... Blower, 13... Fuel cell, 14...
Battery container, 15...Fuel cell air electrode, 16...Air electrode outlet gas, 17...Reformer internal monitoring seat, 18...
・Nitrogen gas, 19... Cooler, 20... Mist separator.

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) It has a fuel cell and a fuel reformer that supplies a hydrogen-rich reformed gas to the fuel cell, and the fuel reformer includes a hydrogen-rich reformer that converts hydrocarbon fuel into a hydrogen-rich reformed gas through a steam reforming reaction. The system monitors the reformer tube, which is filled with a catalyst to produce a quality gas, the reformer burner, which supplies the reaction heat necessary for the steam reforming reaction around the reformer tube, and the situation inside this combustion chamber. A seat is provided for the reformer burner, pressurized air is supplied to the reformer burner as air for the reformer burner, and combustion exhaust gas from the reformer is used as a purge gas for the fuel cell container. In a battery power generation system, air from each system supplied to the fuel cell power generation system, or a portion of the exhaust gas from the fuel cell or reformer burner, is supplied to the internal monitoring seat via a cooler. A cooling device for a monitoring seat inside a fuel reformer, characterized in that it is configured to cool the inside of a fuel reformer. (2) A cooling device for an internal monitoring seat of a fuel reformer according to claim 1, wherein nitrogen gas for backup is supplied to the internal monitoring seat.