GB1142941A - Improvements in and relating to gas producing - Google Patents

Abstract

1,142,941. Making town's gas. WHESSOE Ltd. 6 May, 1966 [16 Feb., 1965], No. 6631/65. Heading C5E. A fuel gas is made by cracking ammonia to form a mixture of H 2 and N 2 and enriching the mixture with a gas of higher calorific value, e.g. methane, propane or butane, or a mixture thereof. Two embodiments are described, one using liquid ammonia as the starting material, see Fig. 1 (not shown), and the other using an aqueous solution of ammonia, see Fig. 2 (not shown). In both embodiments the ammonia is catalytically cracked in an externally heated furnace and the H 2 /N 2 gas mixture washed, e.g. with water in-an absorber, to remove residual NH 3 , before being mixed with the hydrocarbon gas and the liquor from the absorber is delivered to a distillation column to recover NH 3 which is added to the ammonia feed, water from the column being returned to the absorber. Instead of cracking in a heated furnace, the ammonia may be preheated and passed over an unheated catalyst, and two or more catalytic stages may be arranged in series, reheating of the gas between stages being reduced by mixing a portion of the final cracked gas with the ammonia feed