One-dimensional Modelling and Optimisation of an Industrial Steam Methane Reformer

Steam methane reforming is one of the most promising processes to convert natural gas into valuable products such as hydrogen. In this study, a one-dimensional model was used to model and optimise an industrial steam methane reformer, using mass and thermal balances coupled with pressure drop in the reformer tube. The proposed model was validated by the experimental data. Furthermore, the effects of flowrate and temperature of the feed, tube wall temperature, and tube dimension on the reformer performance were studied. Finally, a multiobjective optimisation was done for methane slip minimisation and hydrogen production maximisation using genetic algorithm. The results illustrated the optimum feed flowrate of 2761.9 kmol h-1 (minimum 32 mol.% produced hydrogen and maximum 0.15 mol.% unreacted methane). This is one of the few studies on investigation of steam methane reformer using a simple and effective model, and genetic algorithm.