This article discusses the concept of combining steam methane reforming (SMR) with fluidized beds of oxygen carrier particles and presents results from process simulations in Aspen Plus of new process outlines with and without carbon capture. Conventionally, heat to steam reforming tubes is provided by gas-fired burners, which transfer heat to the tube’s surface mainly by radiation. An alternative approach to provide heat to the endothermic SMR reaction is to use fluidized bed technology, utilizing oxygen carrier particles as bed material. Two novel configurations of the steam reforming process are proposed. The first concept incorporates SMR with a single bubbling fluidized bed reactor of oxygen carrier particles, or Oxygen Carrier Aided Combustion (OCAC). The second combines Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC) with an external fluidized bed heat exchanger (FBHE) used for SMR. Here, biomass is used as supplementary fuel in the furnace. The results for the OCAC-based system show that the cold gas efficiency can be increased compared to a reference case describing a conventional process, and at the same time decrease CO₂ emissions by 4%. The biomass-fuelled CLC configuration displays surprisingly large negative CO₂ emissions, corresponding to a CO₂ emission reduction by 151% compared to the reference case.

本文讨论了将蒸汽甲烷重整（SMR）与氧气载体颗粒的流化床相结合的概念，并介绍了在Aspen Plus中模拟有无碳捕集过程的模拟过程的结果。常规地，蒸汽重整器的热量由燃气燃烧器提供，燃气燃烧器主要通过辐射将热量传递到管的表面。为吸热SMR反应提供热量的另一种方法是使用流化床技术，利用氧气载体颗粒作为床层材料。提出了蒸汽重整过程的两种新颖构型。第一个概念将SMR与氧气载体颗粒或氧气载体辅助燃烧（OCAC）的单个鼓泡流化床反应器结合在一起。第二种方法将化学循环燃烧（CLC）与用于SMR的外部流化床热交换器（FBHE）结合在一起。在此，生物质被用作炉中的辅助燃料。基于OCAC的系统的结果表明，与描述传统工艺的参考案例相比，可以提高冷气效率，同时降低CO₂排放降低4％。生物质燃料的CLC配置显示出令人惊讶的负CO ₂排放，与参考案例相比，相当于减少了151％的CO ₂排放。