Process Modeling, Optimization, and Heat Integration of Ethanol Reforming Process for Syngas Production with High H2/CO Ratio

Abstract

The process modeling, parameter optimization, and heat integration of reforming ethanol to hydrogen is conducted in this paper. Modeling results show that the optimum reaction pressure for ethanol steam reforming is 1 bar. When the 7.4:1 is selected as a moderate water/ethanol ratio, the optimum reaction temperature is about 755 °C. As for heat integration, the composite curve and optimum heat-exchange network are given out by pinch technology, of which adding a heat exchanger can reduce 10,833 kW of heating duty and 10,833 kW of cooling duty and make the energy saving reach about 57.4%. Another two heat-integration plans are proposed for the ethanol steam-reforming process, to further decrease the high-level heat duty. Finally, similar heat integration was also carried out for the oxidative steam reforming, and the system is autothermal when the oxygen/ethanol is about 0.5:1 on the basis of above steam-reforming process, while the hydrogen molar purity is decreased from 69% to 66%.