Experimental investigation on the effect of natural gas composition on performance of autothermal reforming

This paper presents experimental study on catalytic autothermal reforming (ATR) of natural gas (NG) for hydrogen ( H 2 ) production over sulfide nickel catalyst supported on gamma alumina. The experiments are conducted on a cylindrical reactor of 30 mm in diameter and 200 mm in length with “simulated” NG of different composition under thermal-neutral conditions and fed with different molar air to fuel ratio ( A / F ) and molar water to fuel ratio ( W / F ) . The results showed that reforming performance is significantly dependent on A / F , W / F and concentration of C 2 + hydrocarbons in inlet fuel. Fuels containing higher C 2 + hydrocarbons concentration have optimum performance in terms of more H 2 at higher A / F and W / F but lower conversion efficiency. Good performance for ATR of fuel containing 15%–20% C 2 H 6 can be achieved at A / F = 5 – 7 and W / F = 4 – 6 , much higher than that for optimum performance of ATR of methane ( A / F = 3 , W / F = 2 – 2.5 ). CO 2 in the inlet fuel does not have significant effect on the reversed water–gas shift reaction. Its effect on reforming performance is mainly due to the dilution of inlet fuel and products.