Development of Natural Gas Steam Reforming System for Hydrogen Refueling Station

摘要

Kier developed a steam methane reformer for hydrogen refueling station. To increase internal heat transfers between hear sources and sinks, annular structure of concentrically disposed cylinders was adopted. The natural gas (NG) steam reforming system consists of a desulfurizer, catalytic steam methane reformer (SMR) and auxiliary components (including steam generator, heat exchangers and burner). The reforming system was configured to test the performance of SMR. The performance of developed SMR was investigated. The developed reformer successfully produced 25 Nm~3/hr of hydrogen at the exit of SMR. The external burner kept providing the heat for steam reforming reaction, resulting in the exit temperature of reforming beds to 700℃ at steady-state condition. The thermal efficiency of fuel processing showed above 70% as a LHV basis. The methane conversion of the fuel processor was 94.6%. Further investigations are required for the fabrication of high temperature shift reactor unit and thermal integration of the total system.