PSA Hydrogen Plants

The efficacy of the PSA Hydrogen plants has brought a sea change in the process to purify and produce hydrogen. Mostly these PSA plants can be used as stand alone units or as a part of steam reforming Hydrogen generation plants.

For example, in a Refining industry a PSA unit has ably replaced the Carbon dioxide removal unit along with methanator and allows the plant to produce hydrogen with optimum purity. PSA Hydrogen gas plants contains a Steam Methane Reformer that is followed by high temperature super conductors. The PSA unit then purifies the syn gas effluent from the HTSC. The final product that is got comes with 99.99% purity. The offgas stream produced by the PSA unit is used by the steam Methane reformer as the primary fuel source. The added benefit of purity because of the PSA units has its benefits in the down stream units. Taking an example, the optimum purity hydrogen makeup to a hydro heater is able to lower the recycle flow and reduce the costs of compression.

 

With the rapid changes in the technology, steam reforming plants that were originally designed for production capacity of 200 to 100,000 Nm3/hr now used for smaller capacity plants. It is now possible with a new type of reformer to serve ranges as low as 50 to 200 Nm3/h. And quite economically too based on steam reforming of natural gas. This capacity range has open the grounds for supplying small vehicles with hydrogen. The plants ability for a quick multiple start-up and shut-down operations has allowed maximum flexibility.

 

In this Hydrogen production plants, purification is achieved by means of pressure swing adsorption (PSA). Typically, the PSA unit consists of four vessels. The vessels are filled with selected adsorbents. The PSA is able to reach hydrogen purities more than 99.999% by volume. While bringing down CO impurities of less than 1 vppm (volumetric part per million). Thus fulfilling the exact specifications as set by the fuel cell fleet operators. Pure hydrogen thus obtained from the PSA unit is subsequently sent to the hydrogen compressor. The PSA off-gas from recovering the adsorbents, known as tailgas, is fed to the reformer burner. These type of plants are known as the on site Steam Reforming Plants.

 

A Skid Mounted Hydrogen plant
Features:
Process:Steam reforming of metahanol
Capacity:5nm3/hr
Produces hydrogen @20 bar pressure
Purity: Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) systems used for purification of Hydrogen, of up to < 10 ppm Carbon monoxide
Cost:Economical

Tags:- Hydrogen Gas Plants, Hydrogen Production Plants, PSA Hydrogen Gas Plants

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