Objective:

Vehicle manufacturers are developing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCV) to address the environmental and regulatory issues associated with conventional automobiles and trucks. Infrastructure to produce, store, and dispense the hydrogen will be necessary to support the FCVs. Existing technologies yield high emissions and result in high operational costs. The objective of this project is to demonstrate and validate a compact, steam methane reformer for producing hydrogen with optimized costs and emissions as well as no undue safety or security risks.

Technology Description:

This project will feature an innovative fueling approach for the on-site production of hydrogen using a steam methane reformer. The 1/10-scale reformer will produce enough hydrogen to support between 5 and 20 FCVs. The technology typically produces hydrogen from natural gas using the following three-step process: 1) steam reforming, 2) water-gas shift, and 3) purification. With steam reforming, natural gas reacts with steam at high temperatures and pressures in the presence of a catalyst. The resulting syngas is a mixture of hydrogen (H2), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), oxygen (O2), and water (H2O). Next, this mixture undergoes a water/gas shift reaction to convert the remaining H2O and CO into H2 and CO2 . Lastly, the mixture is purified to bring the H2 content to 99.99% or greater. Although steam methane reformers have been built over a wide range of sizes, the cost of conventional designs favor large industrial applications. Industrial-sized systems are not practical for fueling vehicles. Recent innovations have led to compact designs with lower costs while maintaining hydrogen purity and low CO levels in the exhaust stream. Manufacturers also have reduced operating temperature and pressure extremes, allowing the use of lower cost materials. Assuming mass production, the costs of compact reformers are projected to be competitive with industrial-sized systems.

Expected Benefits:

Optimization will provide a cost competitive, low emission technology for fueling hydrogen FCVs. Successful completion of this project will allow the Department of Defense (DoD) to take a leadership role in developing the fueling infrastructure needed to support hydrogen FCVs. Test and evaluation data also will support development of a design template for an optimized hydrogen fuel station at other DoD sites. Use of FCVs will: 1) eliminate most criteria pollutants associated with vehicle operations; 2) reduce greenhouse gas emissions; 3) reduce fluid wastes generated by most conventional internal combustion engine vehicles (i.e., engine oil, transmission fluid, coolant); 4) improve environmental sustainability of transportation systems by reducing consumption of limited petroleum reserves; and 5) comply with the objectives of the Clean Air Act, Energy Policy Act, and Executive Order 13149 - Greening the Government Through Federal Fleet and Transportation Efficiency.
(Anticipated Project Completion - 2006)

Principal Investigator:

Mr. David Cook

Naval Facilities Engineering Service Center

Code ESC 426.DC

1100 23rd Avenue

Port Hueneme, CA 93043-4370

Telephone: (805) 982-3477

Fax: (805) 982-4832

E-mail: david.j.cook@navy.mil