Advanced Process for Hydrogen Production By Steam Conversion of Hydrocarbons

By Dr. Dmitri Astanovsky, Vice President, Fast Engineering, Ltd.

The greater demand for hydrogen in ammonia and methanol production, refinery, motor vehicles, etc., is advancing processes for steam catalytic hydrocarbon conversion and catalytic CO conversion in hydrogen production.

Fast Engineering, Ltd., located in Moscow, Russia, has created a new design reactor for carrying out catalytic processes and heat exchange. The use of this equipment for cleaning hydrocarbons from sulfur, steam catalytic hydrocarbon conversion, and catalytic CO conversion and heat exchanger processes in hydrogen production reduces energy consumption and capital investment and solves environmental problems.

The reduction of energy consumption by around 5-10% is carried out at the expense of decreased pressure drop of equipment and more intensive use of heat.

The capital investment needed is decreased by a factor of three to five times (depending on unit capacity) at the expense of considerable size reduction of equipment and materials consumption (metals, catalysts, etc.)

The use of a catalytic burner for a new design reactor for steam catalytic hydrocarbon conversion solves environmental problems, providing discharge stack gases having no adverse components.

The newly designed catalytic reactor for steam hydrocarbon conversion enables creation of hydrogen production units for specific capacity in a wide range of pressures. These units will be reliable in operation and be able to operate in a wide range of load.

The use of new designs enables creation of space-saving production units as well as modular units. The reactor for hydrocarbon conversion (instead of tubular reactors) for large-scale units of ammonia and methanol production, refinery, etc., can be manufactured and supplied to the customer fully assembled by railway, road, and sea transport.

The Fast Engineering heat exchanger design has low pressure drop, maximum specific surface for heat exchanging in unit volume of cylindrical equipment and can carry out the heat exchanging process at high temperatures (up to 1,000°C) and in high temperature and pressure drops of heat exchange mediums.

Taking into account the above, the new designs are highly prospective both for reconstruction of existing plants for hydrogen production and construction of new ones.

For additional information, contact: Dr. Dmitri Astanovsky, Vice President, Fast Engineering, Ltd., Novocheremushkinskaya Ul.21-1-191. Phone/Fax: +7.095.718.8196. Fax: +7.095.718.8196. E-mail: astanovsky@hotmail.com.

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