Abstract: A fuel reforming apparatus comprising a liquid feed heating portion, an evaporation portion, a steam superheating portion, a reforming portion, a shift reaction portion, a CO oxidization portion, a catalytic combustion portion, and a heat recovery portion. These portions are constituted by flat plates provided with heat-transfer fins in the interior and are stacked into an integral structure, thereby obtaining a temperature distribution along a stacked direction so that the flat plate elements reach a temperature suitable for reforming, combustion, evaporation, shift, and CO oxidization.

Abstract: In a Vuilleumier heat pump, hot and cold displacers are supported by coil springs in respective buffer chambers. Further, there are respectively provided forced vibration systems of the hot and cold displacers using, as exciting force, force applied to respective displacer rods due to a difference between a pressure fluctuation of a working gas in an inner working space and a pressure in the buffer chambers. A linear motor is also provided to drive the hot displacer so as to reciprocate. It is thereby possible to provide the Vuilleumier heat pump in which a mechanism for driving the hot and cold displacers can have a small-sized and simplified structure, and no restriction is imposed on an arrangement of hot and cold cylinders.