HYPRO process

The Hypro process is a continuous catalytic method (Figure 10-3) for hydrogen manufacture from natural gas or from refinery effluent gases. The process is designed to convert natural gas ... 

Hypro process a continuous catalytic method for hydrogen manufacture from natural gas or from refinery effluent gases. 

The Hypro process that makes hydrogen by catalytically decomposing hydrocarbons to carbon and hydrogen. The carbon is burned to provide the heat for the reaction. This process was developed by UOP. 

There have been attempts to use catalysts in order to reduce the maximum temperature of thermal decomposition of methane. In the 1960s, Universal Oil Products Co. developed the HYPRO process for continuous production of hydrogen by catalytic decomposition of a gaseous hydrocarbon streams. Methane decomposition was carried out in a fluidized bed catalytic reactor from 815 to 1093°C. Supported Ni, Fe and Co catalysts (preferably Ni/AUOs) were used in the process. The coked catalyst was continuously removed from the reactor to the regeneration section where carbon was burned off by air, and the regenerated catalyst returned to the reactor. Unfortunately, the system with two fluidized beds and the solids-circulation system was too complex and expensive and could not compete with the SR process. 

The mass- and energy-based indicators help to identify process alternatives for which sustainability metrics, environmental impact factors, as well as inherent safety indices can be estimated. The goal here is to optimize the process so that there is improvement in all these metrics with respect to the base case design. The application of the methodology requires a combination of tools ranging from databases to process simulation software (such as Aspen , Hypro , Sim Sci , etc.), to computational routines for various types of indicators and process synthesis/design tools. 

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