Conventional hydrogen production plants consist of natural gas steam reforming to CO+3H 2 on Ni catalysts in a furnace, water-gas shift reaction for converting CO into CO 2 and CO 2 absorption. A new alternative method for highly endothermic steam reforming is autothermal reforming (steam reforming with air input to the reactor) without the need for external heating. In this study, hydrogen production by autothermal reforming for fuel cells (base case) was simulated based on a heterogeneous and one-dimensional model. In addition, the effect of operating variables on the system behavior was studied. Finally, Pareto-optimal solutions for the maximum molar flow rate of the produced hydrogen and methane conversion were determined by NSGA-II. There was a huge increase in the produced hydrogen molar flow to the base case, which showed the importance of optimizing autothermal reformers for hydrogen production.
Conventional synthesis gas production plants consist of a natural gas steam reforming to CO þ 3H 2 on Ni catalysts in a furnace. An alternative method for highly endothermic steam reforming is auto-thermal reforming. In this work, synthesis gas production by auto-thermal reforming was simulated based on a heterogeneous and one-dimensional model in two cases. The first case was the auto-thermal reformer of Dias and Assaf's study. The present work was validated by the reported experimental results. The second case was the fixed-bed catalytic auto-thermal reactor operated at high pressure, which was suitable for methanol production and Fischer-Tropsch reactions (baseline case). Then, the effect of operating variables on the system behavior was studied. Finally, Pareto-optimal solutions were determined by non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II. The objectives included obtaining a H 2 =CO ratio of 2 in the produced synthesis gas and the maximum methane conversion. The adjustable parameters were the feed temperature, mass flux, and O 2 =CH 4 and H 2 O=CH 4 ratios in the feed.
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