Toward enhanced hydrogen production in a catalytic naphtha reforming process

Environmental regulations imposed on transport fuels, especially specifications on sulfur and nitrogen content, generally boost hydrogen requirements in refining industries. The catalytic naphtha reformer (CNR) process is one of the major sources of hydrogen in naphtha refinery, thus improving its hydrogen production would be of great importance for refining industries. Close examination of the reaction kinetics of CNR processes has identified temperature, hydrogen concentration and catalyst activity as key variables affecting the process's performance. In this paper, a new reactor concept is developed that better exploits these process variables. The proposed membrane moving-bed reactor promises to significantly outperform the conventional continuous catalyst regenerative (CCR) design. A case study identifies improvements of 23.6 mol% in hydrogen production, 18.8 mol% in aromatics production. Moreover, the reformate yield was found to increase by 10.6 wt%, while the production of light gases decreases to a value of 18.6 wt%.

► Conceptual designs of new reactor and process are developed to enhance production of hydrogen in naphtha catalytic reformer.
► Kinetics is closely examined to determine the key process variables.
► Based on identified key process variables, the new conceptual design of reactor is proposed.
► The process design is developed around the new reactor.
► An optimization scheme for new process design is devised and implemented.