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Steam Methane Reforming & Pressure Swing Absorption

When Amino Chem (Annuo) needed industrial-scale hydrogen to feed five separate downstream processes — dye intermediates, steel blanketing, and three chemical production lines — they needed one plant that could match a wide range of demand at 99.999% purity, every hour of every day. Hydrexia designed and delivered a complete SMR-PSA plant that has been running on spec since 2021.
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The Challenge

Five downstream processes. One source. No room for "close enough."

Amino Chem’s Shaoxing site runs five separate hydrogen-consuming processes side by side: a dye intermediate line, a steel blanketing atmosphere, and three chemical processing streams. Each has its own demand profile, its own uptime expectations, and the same non-negotiable purity requirement — 99.999%, the kind of spec where a single off-grade hour can scrap a batch downstream.

That meant the plant couldn’t just be big. It had to be flexible, guaranteed, and footprint-efficient enough to fit a working industrial site — with the contractual performance assurances a multi-process operator can actually rely on.

Customer Pain Points

Five different downstream demand profiles

Dye, steel, and three chemical lines all pulling from the same header — with no margin for variability.

Five-nines purity, every hour

99.999% H2 is not a target — it’s a hard floor. Anything less risks downstream batch loss.

Performance guarantees, not promises

A multi-process operator needs contractual capacity, turndown, and recovery numbers that hold up in the field — not a brochure.

What Hydrexia Delivered

A complete SMR-PSA plant, built to spec and backed end-to-end.

Hydrexia delivered a full natural-gas reforming and hydrogen purification plant — equipment supply, installation supervision, and ongoing service parts — engineered for the site’s load profile and downstream mix. The process moves natural gas through five stages, recovering heat at every step:

  1. Desulfurization — Sulfur in the natural gas feed is reduced from odorant levels to 0.1 ppm, protecting catalysts downstream.
  2. Steam Methane Reforming (SMR) — Reformer operates at 810 °C, producing syngas at roughly 70% H₂, 10% CO, with the balance methane and other gases. Waste heat is recovered for steam generation.
  3. Water Gas Shift — CO is converted to CO2 at 320 °C, driving the syngas to ~20% CO2 and just 1.1% CO. Heat is again recovered.
  4. MDEA Decarbonization — CO2 is scrubbed out at 58 °C, leaving syngas at ~87.5% H2 with only 0.2% CO2.
  5. Pressure Swing Absorption (PSA) — Final purification at 40 °C delivers hydrogen at three-to-five nines purity. PSA waste gas is recycled back into the process — no thermal energy wasted.

The result is a tightly integrated plant with guaranteed performance numbers: 20,000 Nm³/h at 99.999% purity, 25–100% turndown to match swing demand, and 90% hydrogen recovery from the feed.

The outcome

The Results Speak for Themselves

Hydrogen production capacity
Nm³/h
Hydrogen purity (5 nines)
0 %
Operating turndown range
0 –100%
Hydrogen recovery rate
0 %

Running since 2021

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"Hydrexia was the best fit on performance, guarantee, and footprint."

Amino Chem (Annuo), Shaoxing, China