Hydrogen generation

A process for generating hydrogen comprising:

• a. mixing a stream of liquid water with a gaseous hydrocarbon fuel stream to produce a fuel-water mixture stream;
• b. thereafter heating the fuel-water mixture stream by indirect heat exchange with a heat exchange fluid, to a temperature sufficient to evaporate the water into steam to produce a humidified fuel stream;
• c. mixing the humidified fuel stream with an oxidant to produce a reformer reactant mixture comprising hydrocarbon fuel, oxidant, and steam;
• d. reforming the reformer reactant mixture under ATR conditions to partially oxidize the hydrocarbon fuel in the reformer reactant mixture and allowing steam to reform the hydrocarbon fuel in the reformer reactant mixture to produce a hydrogen enriched reformer product gas, and
• e. using the reformer product gas as the heat exchange fluid in step b to produce the humidified fuel stream.