Advanced reactor concepts for oxidative coupling of methane

Abstract

Oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) has been investigated as an interesting way to obtain higher hydrocarbons from natural gas. The aim of this article is to evaluate the reactor concepts for oxidative coupling of methane, from the 1980s through the current state of the art, giving a general insight into the reactor engineering possibilities and perspectives of application of OCM in large scale reactors. The concepts were classified according to the type of reactor bed, the heat management system, the oxygen feeding policy, the degree of integration with separation units, the relative cost, and the current demonstration on industrial scale.

Mixed Ionic-Electronic Conducting Membranes (MIEC) for Their Application in Membrane Reactors: A Review

“…The competition between the primary reactions combined with the consecutive reactions that are also involved in the process (for instance, Stansch et al [196] used 10 reactions to describe the OCM kinetics) makes this process very complex. Because of the importance of the undesired reactions, the conventional OCM process has the common selectivity-conversion problem of consecutive reactions, which usually results in a poor performance impeding the implementation of this process at industrial scales [197]. The most important OCM membrane reactor studies, including their achieved OCM performances, are listed in Table 6.…”

Effect of thermal treatment on the stability of Na–Mn–W/SiO2 catalyst for the oxidative coupling of methane

“…Despite 30 years of studies on the OCM process investigating the optimal reaction conditions, different reactor designs and catalyst formulations [5][6][7][8][9][10] there are still limiting factors for the industrial implementation of the OCM technology. One of the main challenges in methane activation is related to the fact that the desired products (i.e.…”

Oxidative Coupling of Methane in Membrane Reactors; A Techno-Economic Assessment

“…Furthermore, the overall reaction is exothermic, leading to the possible formation of hotspots that lower the reactor yield unless a proper reactor cooling and heat management is carried out, as experimentally demonstrated in conventional packed bed reactors, widely studied for OCM [6]. There are many alternatives proposed in the open literature to deal with it [7], and they suggest that a deeper understanding of the mass and heat transfer in the system is required to accordingly modify the conventional reactor designs [8][9][10]. On the other hand, the heat generated in the OCM reaction system can be turned into an advantage if it is properly handled, as the energy released can be used to produce energy/heat, thus reducing the need of electricity import [11,12].…”

“…Another possibility to increase the OCM performance is the use of the membrane reactor technology, which has arisen in the last years as a rapid and feasible reactor configuration alternative to enhance the yield of the process [20][21][22]. In a membrane reactor, the oxygen can be distributed along the reactor, favoring the selectivity towards the coupling reaction (reaction 3) over the oxidation ones [4,5,7,23]. Moreover, by distributing the oxygen along the reactor, the formation of hotspots is minimized and results in an easier heat management.…”