Afterburners including methods of making and operating
AssigneeWATT Fuel Cell Corp.
InventorsCaine Finnerty, Paul DeWald
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Abstract
The present teachings provide designs and materials of construction for afterburners as well as methods of making the afterburners. More specifically, the afterburners of the present teachings can include a compressible, resilient refractory material such that thermal expansion of other adjacent components, for example, a fuel cell stack of a fuel cell unit, can be accommodated by the afterburner. The present teachings also provide methods of reducing contaminants in exhaust streams and/or generating heat.
Claims20
An afterburner, the afterburner comprising:
- a stack of layers, each layer comprising a compressible, resilient refractory material and defining one or more apertures through the layer, wherein the stack of layers defines non-linear channels through the stack of layers from an inlet face of the stack of layers to an outlet of the stack of layers;
- and
- a combustion catalyst associated with exposed surfaces of the at least one or more apertures of at (east one layer of the stack of layers such that the combustion catalyst is associated with an exposed surface of a non-linear channel.
A method of reducing contaminants in a fluid stream, the method comprising:
- flowing a fluid comprising contaminants and/or a reformable fuel through non-linear channels of an afterburner, wherein the afterburner comprises a compressible, resilient refractory material that defines the. non-linear channels from an inlet of the afterburner to an outlet of the afterburner and a combustion catalyst associated with at least a portion the exposed surfaces of the non-linear channels;
- and
- combusting, at least partially, the fluid comprising contaminants and/or the reformable fuel with the combustion catalyst to produce an outlet fluid stream comprising a reduced amount of contaminants compared to the fluid entering the afterburner and/or to produce heat.
A method of making an afterburner, the method comprising:
- cutting at least one aperture in a layer of a compressible, resilient refractory material;
- repeating the cutting step to create a plurality of layers, each defining one or more apertures through each respective layer;
- associating a combustion catalyst with exposed surfaces of at least one or more of the apertures of at least one layer;
- stacking the plurality of layers to form non-linear channels through the stack of layers, wherein the combustion catalyst is associated with at least a portion the exposed surfaces of at least one of the non-linear channels;
- and
- securing the plurality of layers to form an afterburner.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.