Fuel reforming processes for hydrogen production

Currently most of the hydrogen produced worldwide is obtained by reforming fossil fuels. The advancement and use of carbon capture and sequestration technologies ensure the CO2 formed during reforming can be easily captured and stored. There are two primary methods for hydrogen production, methane reforming and naphtha reforming. The present work is aimed to provide the state-of art for both technologies in addition to shedding light on the reforming of some other fuels. Methane reforming while being a very mature technology, still has its challenges when it comes to the choice of catalyst. Over the past decade methane reforming using solar energy has gained prominence. While some solar technologies such as parabolic trough collector with brine solution can be easily adapted for hydrogen reforming, challenges to ensure proper heat flux distribution remain. Novel designs of collectors have also been developed and are under study. Modelling of naphtha reforming is challenging as naphtha is a mixture of several thousands of components, it is often practically impossible to determine its accurate composition. There are several reaction kinetics that have been developed for naphtha reforming. Furthermore, it is essential to model the catalyst deactivation when modelling naphtha reformer. Optimization of the naphtha reformer and the plant is essential to ensure low-cost, high productivity yield.