A Comparative Study of Reforming Technologies: Steam Methane Reforming (SMR), Partial Oxidation (POX) and Auto Thermal Reforming (ATR)

Hydrogen has emerged as an alternative clean source of energy to replace fossil fuels.
Hydrogen, a component of syngas, the other being carbon monoxide is usually produced
via reforming. Analysis is done to compare three reforming technologies namely steammethane
reforming (SMR), partial oxidation (POX) and auto thermal reforming (ATR).
The scope of the study focuses more towards the natural gas reforming, where its main
constituent is methane. The operating conditions are manipulated to produce optimum
performance and to have the lowest energy cost. Energy cost has become an important
factor of consideration in industries. Similar study on comparison of reforming
technologies was done using AspenPlus™. To compare and verify the results of study,
the three reforming processes are compared and simulated using HYSYS. Through the
simulation, optimum operating conditions for each reforming process is identified.
Among the operating conditions varied in process simulation are reactor temperature
and steam to carbon ratio for SMR, air ratio and preheat temperature for POX and air
ratio, steam to carbon ratio and preheat temperature for ATR. The process is simulated
at optimum operating conditions and material and energy balance is done to identify the
system with lowest cost in terms of CH4 equivalent. POXreforming has been identified
to have the least cost, requiring 0.3646 mol/s of methane. SMR requires 0.4006 mol/s
while ATR requires 0.3668 mol/s of CH4. Process simulation is also done using plant
data and is compared with initial process simulation. Previous study results of Seo.Y.S
et al. (2002) were verifiedand it is comparable to the results in this project.