Catalytic combustion

Claim 1

A process for the production of a hot pressurized gas stream by catalytic partial combustion comprising: (a) passing a first gas stream, containing at least one hydrocarbon gas, at superatmospheric pressure through a constriction whereby a lower pressure region is created; (b) feeding the gas stream from the lower pressure region to the inlet of a combustion zone containing a combustion catalyst that also has steam reforming activity; (c) separately feeding to the inlet of the combustion zone a second gas stream, said second gas stream containing free oxygen and at least one of said first and second streams containing steam; (d) effecting partial combustion and steam reforming of said hydrocarbon gas in the combustion zone to produce a hot product gas stream containing hydrogen; and (e) recycling part of the hot product gas stream to said lower pressure region and therein mixing that recycled hot product gas stream with the first gas stream, the passage of the first gas stream through the constriction providing a pressure in said lower pressure region sufficiently below the pressure of said hot product gas stream to cause said recycle; whereby the gas stream fed from said lower pressure region to the inlet of said combustion zone is a mixture of the recycled hot product stream and the first gas stream and thus contains hydrogen.