Patent ID: 7344687
Filing Date: 2008-03-18
Classification: B01B,B60L,C01B,Y02T

Abstract:
1. A fuel reforming system, comprising: a reformer which produces reformer gas which mainly contains hydrogen by reforming a vapor of a hydrocarbon fuel; a first fuel tank which stores a liquid hydrocarbon fuel; a vaporizer which produces fuel vapor by vaporizing the liquid hydrocarbon fuel supplied from the first fuel tank, the vaporizer comprising a housing and a heating element which is disposed in the housing and heats the liquid hydrocarbon fuel; a vapor supply passage which is directly connected to the vaporizer at a point downstream of the heating element with respect to flow of fuel vapor and supplies the fuel vapor produced by the vaporizer to the reformer; a recovery passage which is directly connected to the vaporizer at a point upstream of the vapor supply passage with respect to the flow of fuel vapor for and recovers fuel in the vicinity of the heating element of the vaporizer to the fuel tank without allowing fuel to flow into the vapor supply passage; a gas-liquid separator which separates the fuel recovered by the recovery passage into gaseous phase fuel and liquid phase fuel; and a second fuel tank which collects the liquid phase fuel separated by the gas-liquid separator, and a pump which supplies fuel in the second fuel tank to the vaporizer.