The discussion revolves around the use of steam reforming of natural gas to generate hydrogen for fuel cells, exploring the difficulties and implications of this process in relation to fuel cell technology. It touches on theoretical, conceptual, and practical aspects of hydrogen production and fuel cell operation.
Participants do not reach a consensus on the difficulties of using steam reforming of natural gas for fuel cells, with multiple competing views presented regarding its feasibility and environmental implications.
Some limitations include the dependence on definitions of "difficulty," the unresolved nature of the environmental impact debate, and the varying assumptions about the efficiency and practicality of hydrogen production methods.
I think I've seen (a test setup described) where the hydrogen content in natural gas is used by having the fuel cell connected to the town gas system and incorporating a filter to extract only the light molecules of hydrogen and use that as its fuel.4220Fox said:So we would use the hydrogen (Made from steam reforming via natural gas) to make the fuel cells then? Thank you-
4220Fox said:Hi all, one last question for today - Given steam reforming of natural gas to generate hydrogen, what is the major difficulty with it with respect to most fuel cells? Thank you,
Disadvantages of reforming for supplying fuel cells
The reformer–fuel-cell system is still being researched but in the near term, systems would continue to run on existing fuels, such as natural gas or gasoline or diesel. However, there is an active debate about whether using these fuels to make hydrogen is beneficial while global warming is an issue. Fossil fuel reforming does not eliminate carbon dioxide release into the atmosphere but reduces the carbon dioxide emissions as compared to the burning of conventional fuels due to increased efficiency.[8] However, by turning the release of carbon dioxide into a point source rather than distributed release, carbon capture and storage becomes a possibility, which would prevent the carbon dioxide's release to the atmosphere, while adding to the cost of the process.