Reaction Engineering and Separations Challenges for Natural Gas Utilization: An Industry Perspective

While mega-scale conversion of methane to liquid products has been commercialized, wide scale use of methane for production of liquid fuels and petrochemicals has not occurred, despite recent price advantages for gas relative to petroleum. Limited yields of targeted C₂⁺ products from C₁ (methane) is a challenge which may require advances in reaction engineering and integrated separations, to augment traditional catalysis research for both oxidative and reductive pathways for methane utilization. Distributed production from stranded gas sites has also lagged relative to plants based on economics afforded via centralized production from major gas fields. Simplified, lower capital intensity processes with coupled reaction and separation and standardized modular designs may enable distributed gas processing to be competitive. This seminar will present an industry perspective on the challenges of methane conversion to targeted products, and opportunities for reaction engineering and process intensification to improve economics for methane utilization.