Patent ID: 7169495

Claim:
A fuel cell system including a fuel cell stack comprising: (a) a fuel supply assembly for supplying reformate to the stack comprising: a prereformer fuel supply, a steam generator, a primary reformer, and a secondary reformer, said secondary reformer partially enclosing the fuel cell stack; (b) an air supply assembly for supplying air to the stack comprising: a low temperature heat exchanger, a first stream including a high temperature heat exchanger, and a second stream including a radiative heat exchanger, said radiative heat exchanger partially enclosing the fuel cell stack; (c) an afterburner which receives the anode and cathode exhaust streams from the fuel cell stack and combusts the exhaust streams to produce a combustion stream; (e) wherein the combustion stream provides heat energy to the primary reformer, the high temperature heat exchanger, the steam generator and the low temperature heat exchanger; and wherein (f) the radiative heat exchanger and secondary reformer receive thermal radiative heat energy from the stack.