Simulation and analysis of natural gas reforming processes

The worldwide energy demand has strongly increased in the past years, so the challenge for the future is the production of alternative fuels because alternative fuels have been receiving lots of concern throughout the world due to the energy demands and environmental awareness. Production of liquid fuels which are synthesized by Fisher-Tropsch process via the synthetic gas (syngas) platform is one of the alternative fuels.;Syngas production by various methods are discussed, however, syngas production by natural gas reforming processes, steam methane reforming (SMR), and combined steam and dry reforming of methane (SMR+DRM) are highlighted in this work. Aspen Plus simulation models are developed for SMR and SMR+DRM to compare capital investment and environmental impacts of these two processes.;Aspen Plus simulation model results are imported to Waste Reduction Algorithm (WAR), which is designed to evaluate the environmental impacts only at the manufacturing stage within the overall life cycle of the chemical production and process. In WAR algorithm, to evaluate the environmental impact of a chemical process, both the process itself and the energy generation process are considered.