PNNL

Abstract

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, Washington are currently developing microchannel heat exchangers, reactors, and separators as components for compact hydrogen generators for fuel cells. This effort, funded by DOE's Office of Transportation Technology, is now demonstrating high performance in compact units. Over the past year, the project team has concentrated most of its effort on the demonstration of an overall microchannel steam reforming system, including four microchannel steam reformers and more than 24 microchannel heat exchangers, which as a system are intended to provide both high energy efficiencies and high power densities. Work is also under way on other microchannel components that may ultimately find value within an automotive fuel processing system or within distributed power systems.