Steam Reformers for Hydrogen Production

• Operating conditions with regard to temperature and pressure can be varied in a wide range depending on the applied process.

• Feeds ranging from natural gas through LPG up to heavy naphthas can be used as feedstock.

• The burners are designed for low NOx and low noise emissions.

• The heat capacity of the hot flue gas is used to a maximum to preheat feed, boiler feed water and to generate process steam.

• Fully automatic operation of the reformer furnace by advanced control technology.

• Our top fired design combines both process and physical arrangement benefits to minimize the total cost of ownership.

Advantages of the top fired design include:

• Allowance for either modularized or stick-built construction to take advantage of the relative differences in shop assembly vs. field construction costs.
• Compact firebox with fewer burners relative to the number of tubes. The smaller surface area per unit volume when compared with wall fired reformers minimizes heat loss and reduces construction time.
• Single operating level of burners allows easy access and simplified combustion control.
• Allowance for the use of horizontal or vertical heat recovery section to match plot space requirements.
• Maximum reforming efficiency by achieving the highest heat flux at the location of the highest endothermic reaction (the upper one-third length of the catalyst tube).

Optimization of the reformer with the waste heat recovery section can be tailored to suit multiple design cases for varying feed stock, fuels, and steam requirements. The use of computational fluid dynamic (CFD) modeling and 3-dimensional design programs integrates the process design and the physical layout.

With the acquisition of Selas in 1982, Linde AG became the only hydrogen supplier to this day owning both reforming and purification technologies, providing total integration and optimization of the entire hydrogen plant, from feed pretreatment through purification.

Selas designs and supplies the reformer “island” including both the reformer and the heat recovery system for integration in a hydrogen plant.

Reference

Hydrogen plant using Selas-Linde top-fired reformer technology

Customer:
Raffineria di Milazzo

Plant location:
Milazzo/Italy

Process:
Linde H2 process based on steam reforming and PSA purification

Feedstock:
Refining offgas, LPG and naphtha

Capacity:
53,000 Nm³/h pure hydrogen

Scope of work:
Engineering, procurement, erection and start-up