Hydrogen Purification

In today's hydrocarbon market many processes have a requirement for a high quality hydrogen feed, e.g. to chemically react with other feed stocks to form new products, or to provide a higher hydrogen partial pressure, at a reducing atmosphere to prevent oxidation or in fuel-cell applications. The hydrogen required can either be produced by generating it, using a steam-reforming of natural gas or methanol cracking process, or recovering it from a hydrogen rich process stream. The hydrogen production processes generate a product syn gas that includes by-products like carbon-dioxide, carbon-monoxide, slip-methane, water vapor and traces of argon, nitrogen and oxygen. When hydrogen rich residual gas streams or by-products from chemical or petrochemical processes are purified, then impurities are various hydro-carbons, methanol, hydrogen-sulfide and ammonia. All these impurities need to be removed from the hydrogen before it is usable in the final application.

The typically used technology to purify hydrogen rich gas streams is PSA (pressure swing adsorption) technology. Generon offers this PSA technology - HYDROSWING® - to customers that require ultra-pure hydrogen (99.9% to 99.999+%):

High efficiency w/ typically 70% to 90% hydrogen recoveries
Feed Gas pressures up to 350 psi (24 bar)
High hydrogen purities from 99.9% to 99.999+%
Flow rates of 10 to 2,000 SCFM

When the purity requirements are less stringent, we will compare our GENERON® membrane technology to find the most economic solution for your hydrogen purification.

GENERON® membrane modules are applied to economically recover hydrogen from hydrogen rich gas streams with minimal losses of 1 to 10% of your valuable hydrogen. Using GENERON® membrane modules in such separations will achieve hydrogen product purities from 90 to 99.9%.

The Applications

Hydrogen-peroxide production
Food engineering
Glass manufacturing
Metallurgy and heat treatment
Hydro-cracker purge gas
FCC overhead gas
Desulphurization purge gas
Ammonia purge gas
Amine production off-gas
Steam-reforming of natural or bio gas

The GENERON® Advantage

Built to your specifications and for your convenience
Skid mounted process units are easy to connect and commission
Engineering support from concept to completion
Remote control operation
Operation flexibility with automated part-load