COMPARISON STUDY OF RHODIUM DAN NICKEL OXIDE CATALYST TO HEAVY HYDROCARBON CRACKING TO METHANE ON PRE-REFORMER FOR INCREASING SYNGAS PRODUCTION AT PT. PUSRI

摘要

Pre-reformer is a catalytic reactor which is useful for reformation reaction of natural in gas cracking reaction of heavy hydrocarbons. This research aimed to study the effect of Rhodium catalyst for cracking heavy hydrocarbons into methane in the pre-reformer to increase the conversion of methane to syngas in Pusri II and to know the impact of additional pre-reformer at Pusri II against the feed gas composition, thermal efficiency and fuel consumption in primary reformer. The results showed that the use of rhodium as a catalyst in the reaction of the pre-reformer can crack heavy hydrocarbons like ethane, propane and butane to methane in a row at 71.9%, 88.2% and 88.2% and methane reformation reaction with steam to produce hydrogen gas and carbon monoxide at 24.9%. Installation of pre-reformer feed gas can alter the composition of the primary reformer and the methane conversion increased to 42.94% from 24.73% at a temperature of 973 K. Installation of pre-reformer can reduce fuel consumption of 97.74 x 1010 MMBtu / hr and an increase thermal efficiency of 13.28% in the primary reformer.