HYDROGEN PRODUCTION SYSTEM AND METHOD OF CONTROLLING FLOW RATE OF OFFGAS IN THE SYSTEM

摘要

A hydrogen production system for carrying out a method of controlling the flow rate of offgas, comprising vaporizer (1) for heating a mixed raw material containing a hydrocarbon raw material; reforming reactor (2) for conducting a reforming reaction of the raw material to thereby produce a hydrogenous reformate gas; PSA separator (5) for in accordance with the PSA separation technique using an adsorption tower packed with an adsorbent, repeating a cycle including the adsorption step of adsorbing unwanted components contained in the reformate gas by means of an adsorbent and drawing a hydrogen-enriched gas outside the tower and the desorption step of discharging offgas containing the unwanted components desorbed from the adsorbent and hydrogen remaining in the tower from the adsorption tower; and buffer tank (6) for temporarily storing the offgas before feeding to the vaporizer. At the time of changing of cycle time according to fluctuation of load on the PSA separator (5), the flow rate of offgas fed from the buffer tank (6) to the vaporizer is changed continuously with time.