Steam reforming

Okay kiddo, do you know what steam is? It's like hot water that you can't touch. And do you know what reforming means? It's like changing something to make it different. When we talk about steam reforming, we're talking about making a different type of gas from some other things.

You see, sometimes we want to make a gas called hydrogen. It's really useful for things like making chemicals, fueling cars or powering homes. But we don't just find hydrogen lying around, we have to make it. One way we can make it is through steam reforming.

We take two gases, natural gas and steam (which is just water in the form of gas), and we heat them up a lot. Natural gas is made up of tiny molecules of things called methane, which is like a bunch of little balls stuck together.

When we heat the natural gas and steam in a special container, the methane starts to break apart and release hydrogen gas. The steam also helps to clean out any impurities that might be in the natural gas.

So the end result of steam reforming is hydrogen gas! It's pretty cool, right? And it's really important because we can use hydrogen as a clean fuel source instead of using things like oil or coal that create a lot of pollution.

So that's what steam reforming is all about. It's like taking two things, heating them up, and making a new gas that's really helpful to us.