Hydrogen is widely used in the petroleum refining industry to remove impurities found in crude oil such as sulfur, olefins and aromatics to meet product fuels specifications. Removing these impurities allows fuels to burn cleaner and refineries to turn a lower quality crude oil into a profitable product that meets increasing environmental specifications.
Hydrogen is, therefore, the key enabler in the refining business. But what is the key enabler for hydrogen itself? Although a relatively mature technology, steam methane reformers (SMR) continue to be the leading, most common and economical means of hydrogen generation. SMRs primarily produce hydrogen, but can also create carbon monoxide (CO), syngas mixtures, steam and electric power for customer use.
Reform and react
The basic principle behind steam reforming, or fossil fuel reforming as it is sometimes referred to, involves the reaction of steam at high temperature with a hydrocarbon fuel feedstock in a reformer device.
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