Industrial Production

On the industrial scale, hydrogen is produced chiefly by steam-reforming of hydrocarbons. A hydrocarbon such as methane is mixed with steam and passed over a nickel catalyst at 800-900°C and about 35 atm pressure:

A second industrial route passes steam over red-hot coke (carbon) at around 1000°C, producing a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen:

This CO + H₂ mixture is called water gas; because it is also used as a feedstock for synthesising organic compounds such as methanol and simple hydrocarbons, it is equally called syngas (synthetic gas).

Converting the carbon monoxide in water gas to carbon dioxide. Since the carbon monoxide in water gas is not the wanted product, it is converted to carbon dioxide by mixing the gas stream with more steam at about 400°C and passing it over a shift converter packed with an iron/copper catalyst -- a step called the water-gas shift reaction:

$CO + H_2O \rightarrow CO_2 + H_2$ …