Patent ID: 6869706

Claim:
A fuel cell system comprising a reformer to produce a hydrogen containing gas for use in a fuel cell stack, comprising: feeding to the reformer, at start-up, a bicontinuous emulsion comprising a coexisting mixture of at least 70 vol % of a water-in-hydrocarbon macro emulsion and from 1 to 30 vol % of a hydrocarbon-in-water macro emulsion, said bicontinuous emulsion comprising, at least 40 wt % of hydrocarbon, from 30 to 60 wt % of water, and from 0.01 to 5 wt % of at least one surfactant selected from the group consisting of alkoxylated alkyl alcohols, alkoxylated alkyl mono esters, alkoxylated alkyl diesters and mixtures thereof, and represented by the respective formula R—(CH 2 ) n —O—(M—O) m —H; R—(CH 2 ) n —CO—O—(M—O) m —H; and R—(CH 2 ) n —CO—O—(M—O) m —CO—(CH 2 ) n —R where R is a methyl group, n is an integer from about 5 to 17, m is an integer from about 2 to 50, M is CH 2 —CH 2 , CH 2 —CH 2 —CH 2 , CH 2 —CH—CH 3 , CH 2 —CH 2 —CH 2 —CH 2 , CH 2 —CH—(CH 3 )—CH 2 or mixtures thereof.