TITLE:
Industrial Feasiblity of Direct Methane Conversion to Hydrocarbons over Fe-Based Fischer Tropsch Catalyst
AUTHORS:
Ademola M. Rabiu, Isa M. Yusuf
KEYWORDS:
Gas-to-Liquid; Methane Chlorination; Synthesis Gas; Olefinic Hydrocarbons; Iron-Based Catalyst; Moving-Bed Reactor; Deacon Process; Carbon-Dioxide Emission
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Power and Energy Engineering,
Vol.1 No.5,
November
26,
2013
ABSTRACT: Recently, as a direct consequence of the dwindling world oil reserves and
the growing awareness of the environmental problems associated with the use of coal
as energy source, there is growing interest in cheaper, abundant and cleaner burning
methane. The Gas-to-Liquid technology
offers perhaps the
most attractive routes for the exploitation of the world huge and growing natural
gas resources. Using
this process the erstwhile stranded gas is converted to premium grade liquid fuels
and chemicals that are easily transported. However, a widespread application of
the GTL process is being hampered by economical and technical challenges. The
high cost of synthesis gas, for instance, weighs heavily on the economics and competitiveness
of the process limiting its wider application. This work presented a modified Gas-to-Liquid
process that eliminates the costly synthesis gas production step. The proposed process utilized an alternative pathway for methane activation
via the production of chloromethane derivatives which are then converted to hydrocarbons. It established that hydrocarbons
mainly olefins can be economically produced from di- and tri-chloro- methanes over a typical iron-based Fischer Tropsch
catalysts in a moving bed reactor at industrially relevant conditions. Some of the
attractions of the proposed process include a) the elimination of the costly air separation
plant requirement b) high process selectivity and c) significant reduction of carbon
dioxide emissions thereby saving
on feedstock loss and the costly CO2 removal and isolation processes.