The characteristics of a plate-fin catalytic combustion heat exchanger (PFCCHE) which integrates catalytic combustion and heat exchange into one device have been investigated by experiment and numerical simulation. One combustion chamber was integrated with two evaporation chambers to constitute a single unit of PFCCHE. The Pt/Al2O3 catalyst pellets were packed into the combustion chamber. The uniform concentration and temperature distribution contributes to the higher thermal efficiency of PFCCHE. A porous media model was supplied to three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of flow field in the PFCCHE. And cold test was performed to validate the numerical model. Results indicated that the numerical prediction of the porous media model was in agreement with experimental data. Fluid maldistribution was observed for the first generation distributor. Thus a second distributor was designed and validated by the cold- and hot-state experiments. Scale-up for 5 kW fuel processing system was performed successfully. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All fights reserved.