TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - CHEMICAL ENGINEERING - Preferred Process: The process is conducted with CO2 entirely sourced from the primary and secondary reformer effluents. The process employs a non-precious metal catalyst. The H2 gas product is at least 99.99% pure. The syngas product has a H2/CO ratio less than 2.0 (preferably 0.5 to 2.0). The natural gas is a feed gas. The process further comprises:diverting a portion of the effluent from the primary reformer to provide a separate side stream;reacting water and CO in the primary stream to provide an enriched stream having increased amounts of CO2 and H2; extracting CO2 from the enriched stream to provide a H2-enriched primary stream and primary extracted CO2; processing the H2-enriched stream to provide the H2 gas product; feeding the side stream to the secondary reformer; cooling the secondary reformer effluent to provide a cooled side stream; extracting CO2 from the cooled side stream to provide the syngas product and secondary extracted CO2; and combining the primary and secondary extracted CO2 with the side stream upstream of the secondary reformer.Preferably, the primary and secondary extracted CO2 are combined after: selectively sorbing CO2 from the primary stream to a primary sorbent; selectively sorbing CO2 from the side stream to a secondary sorbent; and stripping from the primary and secondary sorbents CO2 selectively sorbedhereby, to provide stripped CO2 for the combining.Processing involves conducting pressure swing absorption on the H2-enriched primary stream to provide the H2 gas product. The process further comprises conducting vacuum swing absorption on a fraction of the cooled side stream to provide a CO-enriched product gas, and recycling a balance of the fraction to the primary reformer. The fraction of the cooled side stream may be subjected to vacuum swing absorption instead of or after extracting CO2. A fraction of the syngas product is fed to a cold box to provide a CO-enriched product gas and additional H2 product gas.Preferred Apparatus: The apparatus comprises: a primary reformer (22); a pressure swing absorption vessel (38) in fluid communication with the reformer and adapted to receive a stream of effluent therefrom;a secondary reformer (42) in fluid communication with the primary reformer and adapted to receive a secondary stream of effluent therefrom; a primary CO2 absorber in fluid communication with the primary reformer and adapted to absorb gaseous CO2 from the primary stream; a secondary CO2 absorber in fluid communication with the secondary reformer and adapted to absorb gaseous CO2 from the side stream; and a CO2 stripper in fluid communication with the primary CO2 absorber, the secondary CO2 absorber and the secondary reformer, where the CO2 stripper is adapted to extract CO2 from the primary and secondary CO2 absorbers, so as to recycle it to the secondary reformer.The apparatus further comprises: (1) a vacuum swing absorption vessel in fluid communication with the secondary reformer, the secondary reformer being in parallel communication with the secondary CO2 absorber and the vacuum swing absorption vessel and (2) a cold box in fluid communication with the secondary reformer, and downstream of the secondary CO2 absorber.