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Gold/Mining/Energy : Global Thermoelectric - SOFC Fuel cells (GLE:TSE) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Claude Cormier who wrote (5517)	6/24/2002 5:05:04 PM
From: ddl	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6016

Claude, A reformer is something like a stock broker... he turns money into paper. Or like a newsletter writer.... he turns an old story into a new line... Only for GLE, the reformer extracts from propane pure hydrogen (the "H" part of the equation), which is what the cells run on.... and we can't wait for the "H" to come from H2O - like in Tathacus ;-0 cheers

To: Claude Cormier who wrote (5517)	6/24/2002 6:33:29 PM
From: Stephen O	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6016

The reformer is the device that extracts the hydrogen from a hydrocarbon like nat gas, propane, gasoline, diesel. It uses a catalyst, I believe the nat gas one uses nickel and glass beads. The output is called reformate. The trick is to get the reformate, almost all hydrogen, pretty clean. PEM cells from such as Ballard need 100% clean hydrogen or they gum up and fail, SOFCs like GLE produces are more tolerant of impurities but too much sulphur will do them in, so filters are required. Oxygen, ie air, crosses the SOFC membrane to react with hydrogen to form steam, and any carbon monoxide to produce carbon dioxide and create electricity and heat in the process. In PEM cells it's the hydrogen that crosses the membrane to form steam and electricity. from Global's website The Reforming Advantage In the foreseeable future, today's hydrocarbon fuel infrastructure will be the only economic source of hydrogen for fuel cells. In order to use hydrocarbons, these fuels must be reformed—a process whereby the hydrogen in the hydrocarbon fuel separates from the carbon through a thermal reaction. SOFCs require only simple reforming and can even reform hydrocarbon fuels internally within the stack. This gives SOFCs a significant advantage in today's marketplace. The first step in the reforming process is to heat the hydrocarbon fuel to a temperature of between 700°C and 900°C, then pass the resulting gas over a catalyst along with water vapour. This very simple process is widely used in industry, such as in production of ammonia for fertilizer. The catalyst promotes a reaction that frees hydrogen and combines carbon with oxygen to form carbon monoxide. The result is a mixed gas stream of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. SOFCs do not require a stream of pure hydrogen fuel, and therefore, there is no need to further process the mixed gas fuel stream to remove the carbon monoxide. For other systems, such as PEM fuel cell systems where carbon monoxide will poison the cell membrane, costly and complex post processing must be undertaken. In fact, Global's SOFC uses carbon monoxide as a fuel. globalte.com