Steam methane reforming (SMR) for hydrogen production with syngas carbon capture

Steam methane reforming (SMR) is a method that can be used for producing hydrogen from natural gas. This is achieved in a processing device called a reformer which reacts steam at high temperature with the gas. SMR uses the endothermic reaction

CH₄ + H₂O ⇌ CO + 3H₂.

The reaction is carried out at an activation energy of 206 kJ/mol and temperatures of 500-900 degrees Celsius.

In this SMR plant, a COGEN plant is running to export a relatively small fraction of the energy involved to the electricity grid. In this case, capturing CO₂ from the shifted syngas using MDEA increases the natural gas consumption by .46 MJ/Nm₃ H₂ and avoids 54% of CO₂ emissions.