NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
Department of Chemical Engineering

Part 3 First Semester, 2023/24

Programme: Bachelor of Engineering Chemical Engineering
Course: Plant and Equipment Design IA
Course Code: ECE3101

Assignment 2
Due 30 October 2023 11:59

The required reduction of benzene, olefin, aromatics, and sulfur in gasoline and the
reduction of aromatics and sulfur in diesel fuel mandated by the Clean Air Act
Amendments will increase the hydrogen consumption in many refineries. Hydrogen
is currently produced by either steam reforming of methane or partial oxidation of
methane with high-purity oxygen and steam. A new autocatalytic reactor using air,
methane, and steam has been proposed by Becker.1 In the proposed process,
methane, steam, and air are each preheated to 600 to 700oC and fed into the
catalytic reactor containing a bed of refractory nickel catalyst. Initial combustion
occurs at a temperature of KXXTC as compared with 1400oC for the Shell-Texaco
process. The combusted gas mixture passes through heat exchange and a heat
recovery boiler before entering a multistage CO shift converter. The gas then passes
through a CO2 wash tower followed by a cryogenic separation unit, where the
hydrogen is separated from the nitrogen, argon, and methane. Prepare a preliminary
cost estimate for a plant to produce 1.4 standard m3/day of 99.0 percent hydrogen
compressed to 3000 kPa. (Standard conditions are given as 150C and 101.3 kPa.)
The following design data should be used in this evaluation:

Kinetic Data Rate of methane reacting in kg mol/kg catalyst per hour is given by

where CH4 is the partial pressure of methane and H2 the partial pressure of
hydrogen, both in units of bar. The reaction on the catalyst is limited by the cracking
reaction of methane, and the product gases containing CH4, CO, CO2, H2, and H2O
exist in near equilibrium conditions.

Catalyst The refractory nickel catalyst is a spherical pellet, 0.005 m in diameter. The
catalyst bed has a void fraction of 0.48 and a bulk density of 1200 kg/m3. The
catalyst is replaced annually

Cost Data
Methane (100%), 3000 kPa=$7.00/100 std m3
Steam, 3000 kPa saturated=$13.20/1000 kg

Page 1 of 2
Power=$0.07/kWh
Cooling water at 320C=$3.96/100 m3
Catalyst cost=$10.00/kg
Economic Guidelines
Project life of 10 yr
Annual effective interest rate of 9%/yr
Minimum acceptable rate of return of 15%/yr after income tax
Income tax rate 35%/yr of gross profit

Page 2 of 2