Micromachined methanol steam reforming system integrated with catalytic combustor using carbon nanotubes as catalyst supports

In this paper we have successfully demonstrated a new micromachined fuel processing system including vaporizer, catalytic combustor and methanol steam reformer. This fuel processing system utilizes the thermal energy generated from the catalytic hydrogen combustion to heat up the entire system. For the first time, we have used carbon nanotubes as a supporting structure of Pt catalyst for combustion. The catalytic combustor could supply the energy to heat the reformer and maintain its working temperature. We have also developed a new coating method of reforming catalyst(Cu/ZnO/Al₂O₃) and observed that adequate amount of hydrogen can be generated for PEMFC. We have successfully reported the feasibility of the proposed fuel processing system in each assembled component.