A Pt-Zr catalyst coated FeCrAlY mesh is introduced into the combustion outlet conduit of a newly designed microchannel reactor (MCR) as an igniter of hydrogen combustion to decrease the start-up time. The catalyst is coated using a wash-coating method. After installing the Pt-Zr/FeCrAlY mesh, the reactor is heated to its running temperature within I min with hydrogen combustion. Two plate-type heat-exchangers are introduced at the combustion outlet and reforming outlet conduits of the microchannel reactor in order to recover the heat of the combustion gas and reformed gas, respectively. Using these heat-exchangers, methane steam reforming is carried out with hydrogen combustion and the reforming capacity and energy efficiency are enhanced by up to 3.4 and 1.7 times, respectively. A compact fuel processor and fuel-cell system using this reactor concept is expected to show considerable advancement. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.