Investigation of Industrial Catalyst Performance of Steam Methane Reforming in Various Conditions

In this study, hydrogen production with an industrial catalyst in the steam methane reforming process was investigated. Due to the abundant application and its rules as fuel in the future, hydrogen is so valuable. In industry, this process carried out at 750-900°C. In order to decrease energy consumption, development of catalysts to decrease operation temperature was considered. In this project, to find catalyst disadvantages, industrial catalyst performance in the different conditions was investigated. CHN analysis for carbon content of catalyst and XRD analysis as well as Scherrer equation for catalyst sintering were carried out During the experiment, methane conversion at 750 °C and 850°C were 75.8 and 84.4, respectively, and almost unchanged, but at 650°C and 550 °C methane conversion followed a decreasing trend. Methane conversion percent and hydrogen mole percent increased with the increasing temperature but after 750 °C, slop of hydrogen mole percent decreased. According to hydrogen production and methane conversion, The most suitable temperature is 750°C and after this temperature, hydrogen yield did not have significant change, in addition, CO selectivity increased that is not suitable.Methane conversion slowly increased and CO selectivity decreased with the increasing steam to methane ratio. Decreasing particle size of catalyst led to increasing methane conversion. During the experiment, carbon content in the catalyst decreased with the increasing temperature.Catalyst deactivation with sintering had a greater impact than carbon deposit in the industrial catalyst.