Specialized Refractories to Withstand Hydrogen Reduction in Syngas Reactors
Understanding the Impact of Hydrogen on Refractory Materials
Hydrogen is a principal product of synthesis gas (or syngas) processes that are employed to form chemicals and pre-cursor gas products for several industries. Hydrogen is a very important and valuable gas, but care must be taken to account for its strongly reducing characteristics, which may degrade typical refractory materials and promote other damage mechanisms.
Challenges for Refractories in Syngas Reactors
Syngas reactors are typically lined with aluminum oxide refractories that can resist the reduction reaction; however, the refractory’s performance will be based on its purity level. At high temperatures and low moisture contents, even small concentrations of hydrogen can readily reduce several metal oxides (e.g. Na2O, Fe2O3, SiO2, KO2) that are often present as impurities in aluminum oxide refractories. These reacted impurities are removed from the material structure, leaving a weakened material that is no longer fit for service, and result in downstream gas and water issues when precipitates are formed during cooling. Similar impurities may also catalyze deposits or microstructure changes within the refractories that cause swelling and crushing of the refractory layers
Saint-Gobain's Materials
Saint-Gobain’s high purity alumina refractories are excellent at combating these unwanted, reduction reactions. We utilize specialty raw materials and operates dedicated manufacturing processes to ensure that the final chemistry of our alumina bricks exceed 99% purity.
Saint- Gobain supplies both hot face and safety backup layers of high purity aluminum oxide that have provided long service life in syngas reactors and demonstrated stable chemistries after several years of use.
If your goal is to achieve long term reliability and maximize the service life of your refractory lining in hydrogen and syngas atmospheres, Saint-Gobain can help you. Please contact us here to connect – we would be pleased to offer you an optimal solution for your reactor.
