(US5180561-A)      Appts. for steam reforming of a hydrocarbon, partic. methane, is a multilayer unit with fuel feed (11), combustion chamber (12) and reforming chamber (13), and separation plates. Each plate has a peripheral masking frame that, on the feed plate, has a fuel feed port. The chambers hold respective catalysts and the combustion chamber plate has dispersion holes, and its frame has air feed and exhaust gas discharge ports.    The reformer chamber frame has raw material gas feed and reformed gas discharge ports. The plates are stacked and the peripheries welded to each other, with feed and discharge gas manifolds mounted on the lateral faces of the unit. The catalysts are pref. formed as spheres.    USE/ADVANTAGE -   As a fuel cell, requires only simple sealing between plates and for the ports.    (JP96005644-B2)      Plate type reformer assembly is for reforming hydrocarbons such as methane in the presence of steam composed of stacked plate-type reformers. The reformer assembly comprises (a) masking frames integrally mounted on peripheries of plate members to define a fuel introduction plate (fuel feeding plate); (b) a combustion chamber plate filled with combustion catalyst; and (c) a reforming chamber plate filled with reforming catalyst; in which (d) fuel feed ports are formed in the masking frame of the fuel introduction plate; (e) several dispersion openings are formed in the plate member of the combustion chamber plate; (f) an air feeding port and an exhaust gas discharging port are formed in the masking frame of the combustion chamber plate; (g) a raw material gas feed port and a reformed gas discharge port are formed in the masking frame of the reforming chamber plate; and (h) these plates are stacked in turn and the peripheries of the plates are welded to each other thereby defining a multi-layer unit; and (i) manifolds for the gas feeding and discharging ports are aligned and mounted on lateral faces of the multi-layer unit.    ADVANTAGE -   The plate-type reformer assembly has gas feeding and discharging ports which are simple and require only simple sealing.