Patent ID: 7875402

Claim:
A method for producing electrical energy from a proton conducting solid oxide fuel cell having an anode and cathode, said method comprising: (a) reforming a hydrocarbon containing feed with steam in a cyclic reforming and regeneration process comprising: i. introducing the feed and steam through a first zone of a reactor containing bed packing material and a reforming catalyst at a space velocity of at least 500 hr −1 under reforming conditions, ii. passing at least a portion of the product of step i through a second zone of the reactor containing bed packing material and transferring heat from the product to the packing material, iii. removing substantially all the product from the second zone said product comprising a syngas enriched in hydrogen, iv. introducing an oxygen containing gas into the second zone and combusting the gas and a fuel in a region proximate to an interface between the first and second zone to produce heat and a combustion product and transferring heat of the combusting to the bed packing material of the first zone, v. removing substantially all of the combustion product from the first (b) supplying said reform product from step iii to an anode region a proton-conducting solid oxide fuel cell and an oxidant to a cathode region of said fuel cell to produce electricity wherein the air supplied to the cathode has an oxygen stoichiometry that ranges from about 1.0 to about 1.5; and (c) controllably supplying at least a portion of effluent from the fuel cell cathode directly to step i of the reforming process to supply steam thereto, the remaining portion of the cathode effluent supplied directly to step iv. of the regeneration process as a regeneration diluent, whereby increasing the portion of cathode effluent supplied to the reforming process increases reforming steam to carbon ratios.