TW201924123A - Modular apparatus of fuel cell system - Google Patents

Abstract

A modular apparatus of fuel cell system includes a start burner, a combustor, an after-burner, and a heat exchanger. The start burner, the combustor, the after-burner, and the heat exchanger are disposed in a chamber. The start burner is surrounded by the combustor, and the after-burner is disposed on the start burner and surrounds the combustor. The heat exchanger surrounds the after-burner and the combustor.

Description

Modular equipment for fuel cell systems

This invention relates to a fuel cell technology, and more particularly to a modular device for a fuel cell system.

Fuel cell is the fourth type of new power generation technology after hydropower, firepower and nuclear power generation technology. It mainly converts chemical energy in fuel into electric energy by redox reaction through oxygen or other oxidant. The most common fuel is hydrogen, and other fuel sources come from any hydrocarbon that decomposes hydrogen, such as natural gas, alcohol, and methane. Due to the limitation of the Kano loop, the theoretical efficiency of the fuel cell is over 80%, and the actual efficiency can reach 50%~60%.

Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) is a fuel cell technology that uses solid ceramic materials as an electrolyte. The entire system operates between 800 ° C and 1000 ° C and is a high temperature fuel cell, so it has excellent fuel selection flexibility. Selectable fuels include methane, natural gas, city gas, biomass, diesel and other carbon. Hydrogen compound. When the hydrocarbon fuel is fed into the system, the feed is first recombined to produce a reformed mixture of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and water vapor, wherein the hydrogen reacts electrochemically with the oxygen on the cathode side to generate electrical energy. Therefore, it has the advantages of high efficiency, diversification of applicable fuels, and no need to use precious metals as catalysts, and the high temperature during operation can also be applied to increase power generation efficiency or heat source supply, and has extremely high residual heat value.

However, due to the extremely high operating temperature of solid oxide fuel cell systems, electronic gas heaters are required to supply under high temperature conditions, but heaters are high-energy devices, so providing heat source for battery operation in this way will be reduced. System efficiency. Secondly, due to the complexity of the solid oxide fuel cell system, many pipelines are connected between the components, which easily causes the heat loss of the pipeline to reduce the system efficiency. Furthermore, if the high-temperature residual heat generated during system operation is not effectively reused, it will increase the energy consumption and is not conducive to environmental protection.

The invention provides a modular device of a fuel cell system, which can make the internal temperature distribution of the device uniform, and can effectively control the heat source of the recombiner and the heat exchanger, thereby ensuring the temperature of the stack and reducing the thermal cycle of the stack ( Thermal cycle) to achieve system simplification, safety, stability and high efficiency.

The modular device of the fuel cell system of the present invention is disposed within a cavity, and the modular device of the fuel cell system includes a starter burner, a recombiner, an afterburner, and a heat exchanger. The starter burner, the reformer, the afterburner and the heat exchanger are all disposed in the chamber. The recombinator surrounds the starter burner, and the afterburner is placed above the starter burner and surrounds the recombiner. As for the heat exchanger, the afterburner and the reformer are surrounded.

Based on the above, the present invention allows the starter burner, the recombiner, the afterburner and the heat exchanger to be disposed in a single cavity by modular design, thereby reducing heat without using energy-intensive components and devices. Loss, effective use of high temperature waste heat and immediate temperature control.

The above described features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description.

The invention is further described in the following examples and the accompanying drawings, but the invention may be practiced in many different forms and should not be construed as being limited to the embodiments described herein. In the drawings, for the sake of clarity, the components and their relative sizes may not be drawn to the actual scale.

1 is a schematic diagram of a modular apparatus of a fuel cell system in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 1 , a modular device of a fuel cell system of the present embodiment is disposed in a cavity 100. The modular device of the fuel cell system includes a starter burner 102 , a recombiner 104 , an afterburner 106 , and The heat exchanger 108, and all of the components shown in Figure 1, are schematic views, the detailed construction of which will be described below. The starter combustor 102, the recombiner 104, the afterburner 106, and the heat exchanger 108 are all disposed within a single cavity 100, and the recombiner 104 surrounds the starter combustor 102, and the afterburner 106 is located above the starter combustor 102. And surrounds the reorganizer 104. That is, afterburner 106 surrounds the upper portion of recombiner 104 to provide heat exchange and preheating of vapor generation. The heat exchanger 108 surrounds the afterburner 106 and the reformer 104, and in Fig. 1 is a cross section of the coiled structure in a number of circles.

In Fig. 1, the starter burner 102 has a conical structure that is small inside and outside, but the present invention is not limited thereto, and the starter burner 102 may have a straight cylindrical structure. Since fuel and air are required to be supplied during combustion, an input line in the form of an inner and outer tube, such as an inner tube 102a for feeding fuel and an outer tube 102b for feeding air, may be provided at the bottom of the starter burner 102. The recombiner 104 surrounding the starter burner 102 is used to supply the reaction fuel (e.g., hydrogen) required for the anode of the stack 110, so that there is a fuel supply line 104a and a line 104b for supplying room temperature water through the reformer. The reformed gas of 104 can be output by the reformed gas discharge pipe 104c. The function of the afterburner 106 is to recycle the anode 110 and the cathode high-temperature exhaust gas and then combust to generate a heat source to provide a heat source for the recombiner 104, so the afterburner 106 surrounds the recombiner 104 and has an anode with the stack 110. A line 106a connected to the cathode high temperature exhaust gas. The heat exchanger 108 is a coiled structure that surrounds the inner circumference of the cavity 100, and the heat exchanger 108 has a cold air inlet 108a and a hot air outlet 108b for utilizing the starter burner 102 or the afterburner 106. The generated high-temperature hot gas converts the cold air into hot air, and outputs the cathode of the power supply reactor 110 as a reaction fuel.

The respective components inside the modular device of the fuel cell system will be described in detail below, but the present invention is not limited thereto.

2 is a perspective view of a starter burner in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 2, the starter burner 102 is used to provide a source of preheating heat for a recombiner (not shown) and a heat exchanger (not shown) when the system is started at room temperature. The start combustor 102 can include a combustion chamber 200, a first fuel input pipe 202, a first air input pipe 204, and a first exhaust gas exhaust pipe 206. The first air inlet pipe 204 is disposed at the bottom of the combustion chamber 200, the first fuel inlet pipe 202 is located within the first air inlet pipe 204, and the first exhaust gas discharge pipe 206 is disposed at an upper portion of the combustion chamber 200.

In the present embodiment, the starter burner 102 may further include a gas dispersion cover 208 disposed at the tail of the first air inlet pipe 204 to provide a function of uniformly dispersing the gas to the periphery. Therefore, when the air is sent to the combustion chamber 200 via the first air input pipe 204, it passes through the gas dispersing cover 208, causing the air intake direction to be perpendicular or nearly perpendicular to the extending direction of the first fuel input pipe 202. The inner wall of the combustion chamber 200 along the conical structure is advanced upwards, so that a vortex guiding airflow is formed, and the dispersed fuel is guided together to the combustion chamber 200 for combustion reaction, and the used high temperature gas is finally passed through An exhaust gas discharge pipe 206 is discharged in a concentrated manner. Since the combustion chamber 200 is exemplified by a conical structure of a small inside and outside, the fluid movement can be increased to improve the heat transfer efficiency. In addition, by adjusting the fuel-to-air feed ratio, the amount of heat supplied after combustion can be adjusted according to the use demand.

3 is a perspective view of a recombiner in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 3, the recombiner 104 includes a vapor generation chamber 300, a water inlet tube 302, a recombiner fuel mixing chamber 304, a vapor inlet tube 306, a recombination gas mixing chamber 308, a recombination chamber 310, a second fuel input tube 312, and a reforming gas. A discharge tube 314 in which a plurality of recombination chambers 310 are coupled to the recombiner fuel mixing chamber 304 and the recombination gas mixing chamber 308. The recombination chamber 310 structure may be a chassis-shaped multi-straight tube type (or a single spiral tube type), and each recombination chamber 310 is filled with a recombination catalyst, which can be started by a burner (Fig. 2) or an afterburner (not shown). The generated heat is transferred to the internally flowing fuel and the high temperature vapor via the heat of the tube wall to carry out a recombination reaction to produce a hydrogen-rich reformed gas.

The steam generating chamber 300 is disposed above the starter combustor (FIG. 2) and below the recombination gas mixing chamber 308, and the water inlet pipe 302 is extended from the bottom to the vapor generating chamber 300, and the structure of the water inlet pipe 302 can also be selected as The chassis-shaped multi-straight tube type (or single-spiral tube type) allows the heat generated by the starter burner (Fig. 2) or the afterburner (not shown) to be transferred to the internal flow chamber via the wall of the water inlet pipe 302. Warm water is used for preheating and steam generation. As for the recombiner fuel mixing chamber 304 is a ring-like chamber so as to surround the bottom of the starter burner (Fig. 2). In order to achieve a better preheating and steam generating effect, the steam generating chamber 300 has, for example, a circular trough structure, and functions as a mixed preheated water. Therefore, after the room temperature water flows into the steam generating chamber 300 via the water inlet pipe 302, steam is generated and vaporized. The input tube 306 flows into the recombiner fuel mixing chamber 304, and is mixed with the fuel fed from the second fuel inlet tube 312 that connects the recombiner fuel mixing chamber 304 to supply fuel and high temperature vapor to the recombination chamber 310. Finally, the recombination gas produced in the recombination chamber 310 will be confluent to the recombination gas mixing zone 308 (e.g., a trough-like structure) and uniformly concentrated to the recombination gas discharge pipe 314 to flow out to the anode side inlet of the stack (not shown).

4A is a perspective view of an afterburner in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 4A, the afterburner 106 is used for recovering the high temperature exhaust gas of the anode and cathode (not shown) and recombusting to generate a heat source, and is provided as a recombiner 104 (including a steam generator) and a heat exchanger (not shown). The source of heat in the high temperature range. The afterburner 106 includes a mixing combustion chamber 400, a fuel dispersion chamber 402, a third fuel inlet pipe 404, a second air inlet pipe 406, and a second exhaust gas discharge pipe 408. The fuel dispersion chamber 402 is disposed in the mixing combustion chamber 400 and has a plurality of fuel output holes 410 such that high temperature fuel (such as high temperature exhaust gas of the stack anode and cathode) enters the fuel dispersion chamber 402 along the third fuel input pipe 404 (eg, a ring shape) After the top surface of the structure, the fuel output holes 410 disposed around the annular structure are uniformly dispersed to the periphery to improve the combustion efficiency. The second air input pipe 406 is connected to the side of the mixing combustion chamber 400. The second exhaust gas discharge pipe 408 is connected to the bottom surface of the mixing combustion chamber 400.

In the present embodiment, the afterburner 106 may further include an adjustment fuel input pipe 412 in communication with the third fuel input pipe 404. Moreover, in order to achieve the function of temperature adjustment of the afterburner 106, the adjustment fuel inlet pipe 412 and the second air inlet pipe 406 for inputting the conditioning air are disposed on the opposite side of the fuel dispersion chamber 402, by means of the two The feed ratio of the flow path adjusts the air-fuel ratio to achieve the purpose of heat adjustment.

When the air is introduced from the second air inlet pipe 406 on the side of the mixing combustion chamber 400 as shown in plan view 4B, it will be advanced along the inner wall of the mixing combustion chamber 400 to form a vortex guiding airflow, guiding along the third fuel input. The tube 404 enters the fuel dispersion chamber 402 and the dispersed high temperature fuel 414 enters the mixing chamber 400 for combustion reaction to generate high temperature heat, providing other components for preheating.

In one embodiment, the second exhaust gas discharge pipe 408 of the afterburner 106 of FIG. 4A described above may be in communication with the first exhaust gas discharge pipe 206 of the starter burner 102 of FIG. 2 described above for concentrated discharge of exhaust gas.

Figure 5 is a perspective schematic view of a heat exchanger in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 5, the heat exchanger 108 is used to generate a high-temperature hot gas generated by using a starter burner (FIG. 2) or an afterburner (FIG. 4A), and the heat exchanger is used as a heat transfer medium to form a heat exchanger function. Use for steam generation or air preheating. Thus, the heat exchanger 108 can be of a coiled configuration to surround the afterburner (Fig. 4A) and a recombiner (Fig. 3) other than the starter burner (Fig. 2) having a cold air inlet port 108a and heat. Air outlet 108b. The cold air inlet port 108a may be provided at the bottom of the cavity (100 of Fig. 1), and the hot air outlet port 108b may be provided at the top of the cavity (100 of Fig. 1).

The experiments are enumerated below to verify the efficacy of the present invention, but the present invention is not limited to the following.

Table 1 shows a simulation comparison of the present invention with a conventional apparatus, and the results are shown below.

Table 1

It can be seen from Table 1 that the design of the present invention is not affected by the environment and the external piping, so that the heat loss is significantly reduced, and the peripheral component (BOP) heat source of the fuel cell of the system is effectively utilized.

<simulation experiment example>

Simulate a cylindrical space with a height of 40 cm and a radius of 10 cm, and simulate a starting burner as shown in Figure 2. The height is 35 cm, the bottom cylinder is 5 cm high, the diameter is 4 cm, and the cone angle is 10 degrees.

<simulation comparison example>

Simulate the cylindrical space as in the experimental example and simulate a cylindrical starter burner with a height of 35 cm and a radius of 5 cm.

The heat flow field between the starter burner and the recombiner is simplified to the above-mentioned simulated cylindrical space, and heat is exchanged with the recombiner through the outer wall surface. Heat transfer optimization evaluation index: increase the average temperature of the field.

RESULTS: In the simulation example, the starter burner with a conical structure increased the average temperature of the field by 6.05% compared with the cylindrical structure of the simulation example, and the Nusselt number increased by 7.83%, which has excellent heat transfer effect. .

In summary, the integrated recombiner, the starter burner, the afterburner and the heat exchanger are in the same cavity, and the structure is designed to have a starter burner and an afterburner, so that the temperature distribution inside the cavity is uniform, and The air-fuel ratio can be controlled by a separate air inlet tube to adjust the temperature within the device. Moreover, the invention can achieve the effects of reducing heat loss, effectively utilizing high temperature residual heat and real-time temperature control without using high energy-consuming components and devices, thereby achieving the purpose of system simplification, safety, stability and high efficiency.

Although the present invention has been disclosed in the above embodiments, it is not intended to limit the present invention, and any one of ordinary skill in the art can make some changes and refinements without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. The scope of the invention is defined by the scope of the appended claims.

100‧‧‧ cavity

102‧‧‧Start burner

102a‧‧‧Inside

102b‧‧‧External management

104‧‧‧Reorganizer

104a, 104b, 106a‧‧‧ pipeline

104c‧‧‧Recombinant gas discharge pipe

106‧‧‧ Afterburner

108‧‧‧ heat exchanger

108a‧‧‧cold air inlet

108b‧‧‧hot air outlet

110‧‧‧Electric stack

200‧‧‧ combustion chamber

202‧‧‧First fuel inlet pipe

204‧‧‧First air inlet tube

206‧‧‧First exhaust pipe

208‧‧‧ gas dispersion cover

300‧‧‧Vapor generation room

302‧‧‧Water input pipe

304‧‧‧Recombiner fuel mixing chamber

306‧‧‧Vapor input pipe

308‧‧‧Recombinant gas mixing room

310‧‧‧Reorganization room

312‧‧‧Second fuel input pipe

314‧‧‧Recombinant gas discharge pipe

400‧‧‧mixed combustion chamber

402‧‧‧Fuel Dispersion Room

404‧‧‧third fuel input pipe

406‧‧‧Second air inlet tube

408‧‧‧Second exhaust pipe

410‧‧‧fuel output hole

412‧‧‧Adjust fuel input pipe

414‧‧‧High temperature fuel

1 is a schematic diagram of a modular apparatus of a fuel cell system in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. 2 is a perspective view of a starter burner in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. 3 is a perspective view of a recombiner in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. 4A is a perspective view of an afterburner in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. Figure 4B is a top plan view of the fuel dispersion chamber in the afterburner of Figure 4A. Figure 5 is a perspective schematic view of a heat exchanger in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

Claims (11)

A modular device for a fuel cell system, comprising: a starter burner; a recombinator surrounding the starter burner; an afterburner disposed above the starter burner and surrounding the reformer; and a heat exchanger surrounding the rear a burner and the reformer, wherein the starter burner, the reformer, the afterburner, and the heat exchanger are disposed in a cavity. The modular device of the fuel cell system according to claim 1, wherein the starter burner comprises: a combustion chamber; a first air input pipe disposed at a bottom of the combustion chamber; a first fuel input pipe, set In the first air inlet pipe; and a first exhaust gas discharge pipe disposed at an upper portion of the combustion chamber. The modular device of the fuel cell system according to claim 2, wherein the combustion chamber has a conical structure. The modular device of the fuel cell system according to claim 2, wherein the starter burner further comprises a gas dispersing cover installed at a tail of the first air inlet pipe to make the air intake direction vertical Or nearly perpendicular to the direction of extension of the first fuel inlet tube. The modular device of the fuel cell system according to claim 1, wherein the recombiner comprises: a steam generating chamber disposed above the starting burner; and a water input pipe extending from a bottom of the starting burner To the vapor generation chamber; a recombiner fuel mixing chamber surrounding the bottom of the starter burner; a vapor inlet pipe connecting the vapor generation chamber and the recombiner fuel mixing chamber; and a recombination gas mixing chamber disposed in the vapor generation chamber Above; at least one recombination chamber connecting the recombiner fuel mixing chamber and the recombination gas mixing chamber, and having a catalyst in the at least one recombination chamber; a second fuel input tube connecting the recombiner fuel mixing chamber; and a recombination gas discharge a tube connecting the recombination gas mixing chamber. The modular device of the fuel cell system according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the afterburner comprises: a mixing combustion chamber; a fuel dispersion chamber disposed in the mixing combustion chamber and having a plurality of fuel outputs a third fuel inlet pipe connected to a top surface of the fuel dispersion chamber; a second air inlet pipe connected to a side of the mixing combustion chamber; and a second exhaust gas discharge pipe connected to a bottom surface of the mixing combustion chamber. The modular device of the fuel cell system according to claim 6, wherein the fuel dispersing chamber has a ring structure, and the fuel output holes are disposed around the annular structure. The modular device of the fuel cell system of claim 6, wherein the afterburner further comprises a regulated fuel input pipe in communication with the third fuel inlet pipe. The modular device of the fuel cell system according to claim 6, wherein the second exhaust gas discharge pipe is in communication with the first exhaust gas discharge pipe. The modular device of the fuel cell system according to claim 1, wherein the heat exchanger has a coiled structure surrounded by an inner circumference of the cavity, and the heat exchanger has a cold air inlet port and Hot air outlet. The modular device of the fuel cell system according to claim 10, wherein the cold air inlet port is disposed at a bottom of the cavity, and the hot air outlet is disposed at a top of the cavity.