The Influence of the Changes in Natural Gas Supplies to Poland on the Amount of Hydrogen Produced in the SMR Reactor

Abstract

Thanks to investments in diversifying the supply of natural gas, Poland did not encounter any gas supply issues in 2022 when gas imports from Russia were ceased due to the Russian Federation’s armed intervention in Ukraine. Over the past few years, the supply of gas from routes other than the eastern route has substantially grown, particularly the supplies of liquefied natural gas (LNG) via the LNG terminal in Świnoujście. The growing proportion of LNG in Poland’s gas supply leads to a rise in ethane levels in natural gas, as verified by the review of data taken at a specific location within the gas system over the years 2015, 2020, and 2022. Using measurements of natural gas composition, the effectiveness of the steam hydrocarbon reforming process was simulated in the Gibbs reactor via Aspen HYSYS. The simulations confirmed that as the concentration of ethane in the natural gas increased, the amount of hydrogen produced, and the heat required for reactions in the reformer also increased. This article aims to analyze the influence of the changes in natural gas quality in the Polish transmission network caused by changes in supply structures on the mass and heat balance of the theoretical steam reforming reactor. Nowadays, the chemical composition of natural gas may be significantly different from that assumed years ago at the plant’s design stage. The consequence of such a situation may be difficulties in operating, especially when controlling the quantity of incoming natural gas to the reactor based on volumetric flow without considering changes in chemical composition.

Gas from the South, Not from Russia: The Possibility of Distributing Natural Gas from the Eastern Mediterranean to Poland and Central Europe

“…The development of gas infrastructure in light of challenges to its distribution is a special area of attention [9,10]. However, the expansion of natural gas transmission capacity in CEEs and in Eastern Mediterranean countries is usually perceived from the perspective of the interests of a specific country [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. This study aims to address the aforementioned issue from a more comprehensive regional standpoint.…”