Autothermal Reforming - development of state of the art syngas technology for advanced fuel production
Sustainable process-product development & green chemistry
Keynote Lectures: Theme-1
Keywords: autothermal reforming, synthesis gas, GTL, methanol production
Martin Østberg, Thomas S. Christensen, Kim Aasberg-Petersen, Martin Skov Skjøth-Rasmussen, Olav Holm-Christensen and Jens Henrik Bak-Hansen
1. Summary
Haldor Topsøe is today leading within technology for synthesis gas production using autothermal reforming. This technology is one of the preferred for GTL units producing synthetic fuels or methanol. The basis for the present technology is the Topsoe-SBA process developed in the 1950’es. This presentation focuses on the development work that has lead to the present state-of-the-art autothermal reforming technology.
2. Extended Abstract
The basis for Haldor Topsøe's present autothermal technology, which latest have been demonstrated in the Oryx GTL plant in Qatar, has been the Topsoe-SBA process developed in the 1950's for production of town gas and ammonia. Today we differentiate between several types of Autothermal reformers. In the secondary air-blown reformers used for ammonia production units, process gas from a tubular reformer is mixed with air or enriched air to introduce nitrogen for the ammonia synthesis and oxygen for further conversion of the remaining hydrocarbons in the process gas. In the oxygen-fired autothermal reformers used for synthesis gas production e.g. in large gas to liquids units producing synthetic fuels or methanol, the feed gas is natural gas and steam at low steam to carbon ratios. This feed gas is typically prereformed to allow for higher preheat temperatures before it is mixed with oxygen in the turbulent-diffusion burner being a core element of the autothermal reformer technology. This presentation will focus on the oxygen-fired autothermal reformer not the secondary reformer technology used for ammonia production.
The challenges to mature the Topsoe-SBA technology from units mainly producing hydrogen to modern ATR reactors producing synthesis gas with high concentrations of carbon monoxide and hydrogen have been numerous. A non complete list is given below:
• The development of the CTS™ burner for ATR expanding significantly the lifetime of the burner.
• Control of the substoichiometric combustion ensuring a stable central flame core with soot-free operation under very fuel-rich conditions and at low steam to carbon ratios.
• Update of reactor design having a refractory lined reactor with high temperature resistant materials enabling operation at the elevated temperatures in the combustion chamber and the catalytic bed.
• Development of catalyst to resist the high temperature and to maintain low pressure drops for extended operating time.
• Development of waste heat boilers that effectively cools the very aggressive synthesis gas.
• Process optimisation to develop a cost effective process layout both regarding to investment and operation cost.
• Scaling of the technology mainly from pilot scale (100 Nhm3/h natural gas feed) to industrial scale (up to 200,000 Nm3/h natural gas feed).
These challenges have been met using laboratory and pilot plant experiments, using various models including CFD, FEM, process calculations, detailed catalytic reactor models and detailed chemical kinetic modelling.
Presented Wednesday 19, 17:05 to 17:45, in session Keynote Lectures: Theme-1 (T1-K3).
