Steam reforming -- A flexible solution to refiners' hydrogen requirements

Technical Report · Fri Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1993

OSTI ID:7074302

Abrardo, J M ^[1]; Patel, N M ^[1]; Davis, R A ^[1]; Sekhri, S ^[2]; Bredehoft, R L ^[2]

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1. Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., Allentown, PA (United States)
2. Kinetics Technology International Corp., San Dimas, CA (United States)

One of the major challenges facing refiners today is how to economically meet the mandates of the federal 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments and subsequent regulations enacted at the state level. To meet these environmental mandates, new product specifications have been developed for oxygenated gasoline, low sulfur diesel, and the first phase of reformulated gasoline. To meet these new specifications, many refiners are faced with the prospect of significant changes to their existing operations and the associated investments. Many of these changes will have an impact on the refinery hydrogen balance. In general, more hydrogen will be required for hydrodesulfurization and hydrotreating while less hydrogen may be produced in the naphtha catalytic reformers. With the addition of a steam reformer, the refiner can gain an additional degree of flexibility in his overall operations. The steam reformer can be designed to process a wide variety of refinery streams and thus can operate with different feeds or a combination of feedstocks as refinery operations change on a daily or seasonal basis. For example, the refiner may have an excess of butane during the summer as RVP limits continue to become more stringent. This butane can be consumed to produce the required hydrogen rather than exported. This paper reviews the design features required in the steam reformer to provide this flexibility. An actual design is presented that incorporates this philosophy. Alternate designs required to utilize other types of refinery feedstocks are discussed and incremental costs associated with processing these feedstocks are presented.

• Research Organization: National Petroleum Refiners Association, Washington, DC (United States)
• OSTI ID: 7074302
• Report Number(s): AM-93-23
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
020400 -- Petroleum-- Processing
08 HYDROGEN
080103* -- Hydrogen-- Production-- Steam Reformer Processes
CHEMICAL FEEDSTOCKS
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
DATA
DESIGN
ECONOMICS
FUELS
GAS GENERATORS
GASOLINE
HYDROGEN GENERATORS
HYDROGEN PRODUCTION
INDUSTRIAL PLANTS
INFORMATION
LIQUID FUELS
MATERIALS
PETROLEUM PRODUCTS
PETROLEUM REFINERIES
POLLUTION REGULATIONS
RAW MATERIALS
REFORMER PROCESSES
REGULATIONS
STEAM REFORMER PROCESSES