Patent ID: 8652223

Claim:
A single pressure vessel for producing syngas containing at least hydrogen and carbon monoxide, comprising: a partial oxidation (POX) reactor located proximate a first end of the single pressure vessel and including a POX reaction zone formed by a portion of the POX reactor, wherein the POX reaction zone exothermically reacts a first portion of a hydrocarbon feed stream with an oxidant gas comprising molecular oxygen and optionally steam and carbon dioxide in a first reactor to produce an exothermically-generated syngas product, wherein the feed stream includes methane; a gas heated reformer (GHR) located between the POX and a waste heat boiler (WHB) and including a GHR reaction zone formed by a portion of the GHR, wherein the GHR reaction zone endothermically reforms a second portion of the hydrocarbon feed stream with steam and optionally carbon dioxide over a catalyst in a heat exchange reformer to produce an endothermically-reformed syngas product, wherein heat used in generation of the endothermically-reformed syngas product is derived from heat released by cooling the combined stream of the product syngas from the POX and the GHR; a mixing space formed by a portion of the signal pressure vessel, located between the POX reactor and the GHR, and configured to receive syngas from the POX reactor and syngas from the GHR to produce a cooled combined syngas stream; the WHB located proximate a second end of the single pressure vessel and configured to generate steam using heat derived by further cooling the cooled combined syngas stream from the mixing space; and wherein the POX, GHR and the WHB are contained in the single pressure vessel independent of piping between the POX, the GHR, and the WHB.