Skip to main content
Clean Hydrogen Partnership

Fire on a hydrogen line of a naphtha reformer

Event

Event ID
517
Quality
Description

A weld on hydrogen line of a reforming furnace failed and hydrogen escaped and ignited.

Event Initiating system
Classification of the physical effects
Hydrogen Release and Ignition
Nature of the consequences
fire
Macro-region
North America
Country
United States
Date
Component involved
pipe (weld)
Failure mode
rupture & ignition
Initiating cause
material degradation (generic)
Root causes
Unknown
Date entry in HIAD
28/01/2026

Facility

Application
Petrochemical industry
Sub-application
naphtha reforming
Hydrogen supply chain stage
Location type
Open
Location
industrial area
Operational condition
UNKNOWN
Pre-event occurrences

DESCRIPTION OF THE NAPHTHA REFORMING PROCESS
The catalytic reforming process consists of several chemical reactions. They all require the presence of a catalyst, almost always platinum-containing, and a high partial pressure of hydrogen. The reaction conditions range from temperatures of about 495°C to 525°C and from pressures of about 5 to 45 bar.
The four major reactions are:
(1) The dehydrogenation of naphthenes to convert them into aromatics
(2) The isomerization of normal paraffins to isoparaffins
(3) The hydrogenation and aromatization of paraffins to aromatics (commonly called dehydrocyclization)
(4) The hydrocracking of paraffins into smaller molecules

The last reaction is the only one of the above four major reforming reactions that consumes hydrogen. Reation (2) does not consume or produce hydrogen, (1) and (3) produce hydrogen, so that the overall net production of hydrogen ranges from about 50 to 200 cubic meters of hydrogen gas (at standard conditions) per cubic meter of liquid naphtha feedstock. In many petroleum refineries, the net hydrogen produced in catalytic reforming supplies a significant part of the hydrogen used elsewhere in the refinery (for example, in hydrodesulfurization processes). The hydrogen is also necessary in order to hydrogenolyze any polymers that form on the catalyst.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogenolysis ]

Emergency & Consequences

Number of fatalities
0
Number of injured persons
0
Currency
US$
Property loss (onsite)
0

In-depth data

Probable IGNITION SOURCE

References

Sources categories
Zalosh
Reference & weblink

Table II - Industrial Incidents of Appendix A of Zalosh and Short
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF HYDROGEN FIRE AND EXPLOSION INCIDENTS
Quarterly Report No. 2 for Period December 1, 1977 - February 28, 1978
https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6566131
(accessed September 2020)