Beschreibung:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>The development of heat resistant permeation membranes has opened up new possibilities for the conversion of fossil energy resources. In steam reforming of natural gas, such membranes even permit a direct production of hydrogen at high temperatures during the conversion of feed hydrocarbons. Further gas processing, such as required for reformer gas in existing hydrogen production processes, is not necessary. Due to continuous hydrogen discharge directly in the reformer tube, the chemical equilibrium of the occurring reactions becomes displaced towards the products, resulting in more favourable process conditions and, consequently, in improved by 36% utilization of the feed hydrocarbons. At the same time, the hydrogen yield increases by 44%. The heat required, which is provided by a high temperature reactor, is 17% in excess of that in conventional plants. It can be expected that the simplified process design will produce substantial cost advantages over the existing processes for the production of hydrogen.</jats:p>