A reactor containing a heat exchanger is disclosed, which can be operated with co-current or counter-current flow. Also disclosed is a system that includes a reactor having a reformer and a vaporizer, a fuel supply, and a water supply. The reactor includes a source of combustion gas, a reformer operative to receive reformate, and a vaporizer operative to receive water. The reformer and vaporizer each include a stack assembly formed by a combination of separator shims and channel shims. The separator shims and channel shims are stacked in a regular pattern to form two sets of channels within the stack assembly. One set of channels will have vertical passageways at either end and a horizontal flowpath between them, while the other set of channels has only a horizontal flowpath.

A reactor includes: a main reactor core including main reaction flow channels through which the raw material fluid flows, and main temperature control flow channels through which the heat medium flows along a flow direction of the raw material fluid flowing in the main reaction flow channel; and a pre-reactor core including pre-reaction flow channels of which an outlet side connects with an inlet side of the main reaction flow channels and through which the raw material fluid flows, and pre-temperature control flow channels of which an inlet side connects with an outlet side of the main reaction flow channels and through which the product serving as the heat medium flows along a flow direction of the raw material fluid flowing in the pre-reaction flow channel.

A hydrogen production apparatus including a desulfurizer, a reformer, a CO transformer a gas flow path, and a purge gas supply path which is provided where a purge gas is supplied to an upstream side of a pressure feeding apparatus in the gas flow path, prior to a stopping operation, a purging step of replacing gas within the gas flow path with the purge gas and filling the purge gas into the gas flow path is performed, and in a start-up operation in which a heating means is operated to increase the temperature of the gas within the gas flow path, which is performed prior to a hydrogen purification operation, a pressure increasing step of supplying the purge gas from the purge gas supply path to the closed circulation circuit and increasing the pressure within the closed circulation circuit is performed.

A power generation system that includes a membrane reformer assembly, wherein syngas is formed from a steam reforming reaction of natural gas and steam, and wherein hydrogen is separated from the syngas via a hydrogen-permeable membrane, a combustor for an oxy-combustion of a fuel, an expander to generate power, and an ion transport membrane assembly, wherein oxygen is separated from an oxygen-containing stream to be combusted in the combustor. Various embodiments of the power generation system and a process for generating power using the same are provided.

Processes and catalysts for producing hydrogen by reforming methane are disclosed, which afford considerable flexibility in terms of the quality of the reformer feed. This can be attributed to the robustness of the noble metal-containing catalysts described herein for use in reforming, such that a number of components commonly present in methane-containing process streams can advantageously be maintained without conventional upgrading (pretreating) steps, thereby improving process economics. This also allows for the reforming of impure reformer feeds, even in relatively small quantities, which may be characterized as complex gas mixtures due to significant quantities of non-methane components. A representative reforming catalyst comprises 1 wt-% Pt and 1 wt-% Rh as noble metals, on a cerium oxide support.

A system is described for providing a hydrocarbon product stream. An electrolysis section provides a syngas stream from a first feed comprising CO.sub.2 and a second feed comprising H.sub.2O, which is then passed to an F-T section where it is converted to a hydrocarbon product stream and a tail gas stream. An electrical steam reformer section said tail gas stream and convert it to a second syngas stream, which is then recycled upstream the FT section. A process is also provided for converting a first feed comprising CO.sub.2 and a second feed comprising H.sub.2O to a first hydrocarbon product stream in a system according to the invention. The system of the invention can be combined with an upgrading section, in a gas-to-liquid plant.

A combined reforming apparatus is provided. The combined reforming apparatus includes two or more catalyst tubes reacting at different temperatures, and allows different reforming reactions to be performed subsequently as the combustion gas supplies heat to two or more catalyst tubes one after another.

A hybrid fuel cell system includes a fuel supply system including a fuel tank, a start-up subsystem, a reforming subsystem and a depressurization system. The reforming subsystem is to receive fuel and to reform fuel to generate a hydrogen enriched gases and steam mixture. The hybrid fuel cell system includes a water supply system that provides water for the steam generator. The water supply system includes a water condenser directly downstream from the reforming subsystem that is in fluid communication with the hydrogen enriched gases and steam mixture to condense the hydrogen enriched gases and steam mixture into water and hydrogen enriched gases. The depressurization system is to reduce a pressure of the hydrogen enriched gases. The hybrid fuel cell system includes a fuel cell stack downstream from the depressurization system and having an anode inlet in fluid communication with the depressurization system to receive the hydrogen enriched gases.

A method for producing ethylene and methanol comprising contacting fuel gas and oxidant gas to produce combustion product; contacting hydrocarbons and combustion product to produce pyrolysis product comprising unconverted hydrocarbons, acetylene, ethylene, CO, H.sub.2, H.sub.2O, CO.sub.2; separating pyrolysis product into CO.sub.2 stream and CO.sub.2 free product comprising unconverted hydrocarbons, acetylene, ethylene, CO, H.sub.2; contacting a first portion of CO.sub.2 free product with aprotic polar solvent to produce acetylene solution and first gas stream comprising unconverted hydrocarbons, ethylene, CO, H.sub.2; contacting acetylene solution with a second portion of CO.sub.2 free product to produce hydrogenation product comprising aprotic polar solvent, unconverted hydrocarbons, ethylene, CO, H.sub.2; separating hydrogenation product into aprotic polar solvent stream and second gas stream comprising unconverted hydrocarbons, ethylene, CO, H.sub.2; separating second gas stream into ethylene stream and third gas stream comprising unconverted hydrocarbons, CO, H.sub.2; and introducing first and/or third gas streams to a reactor to produce methanol.

A method and system for producing hydrogen using an oxygen transport membrane based reforming system is disclosed. The system of the invention comprises at least two reactors in the form of sets of catalyst containing tubes: a first set of tubes comprising at least one reforming catalyst containing reforming reactor configured to produce a synthesis gas stream, and a second set of tubes comprising a reactively driven and catalyst containing oxygen transport membrane reactor configured to generate and radiate heat to the reforming reactor.

The synthesis gas product is further treated in a separate high temperature water gas shift reactor and optionally in a separate low temperature water gas shift reactor. Hydrogen is produced from the resulting hydrogen-enriched gas using hydrogen PSA. A distinctive feature of this OTM configuration is that no portion of the syngas is fed to the OTM reactor, which allows reforming to be conducted in the reforming reactors at much higher pressures. The synthesis gas stream is directed to the water gas shift (WGS) reactor where H2/CO ratio increases from about 4.7 to about 21. Since the WGS reaction is exothermic, the shifted syngas leaves the reactor at a higher temperature, typically about 410 C. This shifted syngas is used to heat the NG feedstock in the NG heater to about 370 C., and then used to preheat boiler feed water (BFW). Syngas leaving the BFW heater is at about 175 C. It is cooled down to about 40 C. in a syngas cooler fed by cooling water. The cooled syngas then enters a knock-out drum where water is removed from the bottoms as process condensate and recycled for use within the process.