Process and equipment for producing glycols from carbohydrates and hydrogen with reactor off-gas treatment and hydrogen production

A process for producing ethylene glycol and/or propylene glycol and/or glycerol in a continuous manner from a feed to a reactor, the feed comprising a carbohydrate source in an aqueous liquid, the reactor further being fed with hydrogen gas, the reactor comprising a catalyst system, said catalyst system comprising a tungsten-containing compound and a hydrogenolysis metal selected from the groups 8, 9 or 10 of the Periodic Table of Elements, wherein a liquid product flow out of the reactor comprises glycols and one or more polyols, and the reactor further provides an off-gas comprising hydrogen and methane,

• wherein the hydrogen gas being fed to the reactor is provided by a hydrogen production section comprising:
• a steam methane reformer (SMR) unit,
• a water gas shift reactor (WGS) unit,
• a pressure swing adsorption (PSA) unit,
• wherein the feed to the PSA unit comprises the hydrogen-comprising product stream of the WGS unit and the off-gas of the reactor, and
• wherein the PSA unit produces a hydrogen product stream comprising at least 98% by volume of hydrogen for feeding to the reactor and a PSA tail gas, wherein the PSA tail gas comprises between 5 and 60% by weight of C1-C3 alkanes which PSA tail gas is fed to the SMR to fuel the steam reforming process in the SMR unit.