Process for the generation of pure hydrogen for use with fuel cells

A process for the generation of hydrogen for producing electric power from a fuel cell, said process comprising:

• a) admixing a feedstream and a water stream to provide a feed admixture and passing the feed admixture to a heat exchange zone to heat the feed admixture by indirect heat exchange to provide a heated admixture;
• b) passing the heated admixture at effective steam reforming conditions including a reforming temperature of between about 650 and about 950.degree. C. to an inlet of a steam reforming zone at an inlet temperature to convert the heated feed admixture and produce a steam reforming effluent stream comprising hydrogen and carbon monoxide, said steam reforming zone comprising a bell-shaped catalyst zone being vertically aligned and having an open-end base and a closed-end top and containing a steam reforming catalyst, said bell-shaped catalyst zone having an inlet at the open-end base and an outlet at the closed-end top, said bell-shaped catalyst zone having an interior wall and an exterior wall defining an interior space, said steam reforming catalyst being disposed within said interior space surrounding a combustion zone, and withdrawing the steam reforming effluent stream at an outlet temperature from the outlet of the bell-shaped reforming zone;
• c) burning a fuel gas mixture comprising a mixture of a portion of the feedstream and a hydrogen-containing stream in the presence of a first oxygen-containing stream within a combustion tube vertically aligned with said bell-shaped catalyst zone and disposed within said combustion zone to provide radiant heat to the steam reforming zone and to produce a fuel exhaust stream;
• d) further heating the interior wall and heating the exterior wall of the bell-shaped catalyst zone by convection with the fuel exhaust stream to maintain the steam reforming catalyst at said effective steam reforming conditions such that the difference between the inlet temperature and the outlet temperature is less than about 25 degrees Celsius;
• e) passing the steam reforming effluent stream at effective conditions to a shift reaction zone and therein contacting the steam reforming effluent stream with a second water stream and a shift catalyst to produce a shift reaction zone effluent stream comprising less than about 0.5 mol-% carbon monoxide;
• f) passing the shift reaction zone effluent stream at effective oxygenation conditions to an oxygenation zone containing an oxidation catalyst in the presence of a second oxygen-containing stream to produce a hydrogen product stream comprising water and less than about 50 ppm-mol carbon monoxide;
• g) passing the hydrogen product stream at effective fuel cell conditions to an anode side of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell and passing a third oxygen-containing stream to a cathode side of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell to generate electric power and recovering an anode waste gas comprising hydrogen from the anode side and recovering a cathode waste gas comprising a reduced amount of oxygen relative to the third oxygen-containing stream from the cathode side of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell;
• and
• h) injecting at least a portion of the anode waste gas stream to the combustion zone as the hydrogen-containing stream.