Scale-up and Assessment of Water Gas Shifts

Synthesis gas consists of a mixture between hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and water. This gas is normally generated by gasification of a carbon containing fuel, to be used as a feedstock for various synthesis processes. The actual composition of the gas depends on many different factors such as type of fuel, type of gasifier, mode of operation of the gasifier etc. The producer gas, i.e. the gas after the gasification step, usually need upgrading since it contains lower hydrocarbons and tars that needs to be converted. This upgrading, from producer gas into synthesis gas is done in the reformer step. The resulting synthesis gas is not necessarily suited for the subsequent synthesis step; it might need to be processed further. For instance the carbon dioxide level might need to be decreased and/or the hydrogen-carbon dioxide ratio to be adjusted. The water gas shift (WGS) process is the process where the ratio between hydrogen and carbon monoxide in the synthesis gas can be tuned.