Patent ID: 7374591

Claim:
A method for starting a gas generation system for generating a hydrogen-containing gas for operating a fuel cell, wherein the system includes at least one converting device configured to convert starting substances into the hydrogen-containing gas, at least one conditioning device configured to condition at least some of the starting substances, at least one removal device configured to remove undesirable gas constituents from the hydrogen-containing gas, and a starting burner, the method comprising: in a first step, burning at least one fuel in the starting burner so as to form hot exhaust gases, heating the conditioning device using the hot exhaust gases, using a residual heat from the hot exhaust gases to heat at least one further component, and electrically heating the at least one converting device; in a second step, adding starting substances at an initial quantitative ratio with respect to one another to respective components of the devices after a starting temperature has been reached; and in a third step, continuously changing the quantitative ratio from the initial quantitative ratio toward an operational quantitative ratio; wherein the at least one further component includes a hydrogen separation module including at least one membrane selectively permeable to hydrogen and a heat exchanger of a cooling circuit.