(434f) Continuous Production of Light Olefins and/or H2 Selectively from Heavy Hydrocarbon Fuels in a Single Compact Reactor
AIChE Annual Meeting
2006
2006 Annual Meeting
Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division
Catalytic Fuel Processing
Wednesday, November 15, 2006 - 4:50pm to 5:09pm
There are different motivations to convert heavy hydrocarbon fuels such as diesel into light olefins and/or H2 (syngas). The challenge of heavy fuel conversion is to avoid coking, since for on-board or small-scale applications, one cannot have a dual reactor system to swing between reaction and coke regeneration, or to have a circulation fluidized bed type of reactor such as FCC (Fluid Catalytic Cracking). To solve this problem, GE has been working on developing a new catalyst and reactor technology to convert diesel into light olefins and/or H2 (syngas) on-board continuously with a single reactor without the need of frequent regeneration of the coked catalyst. The heart of this technology is to develop new hybrid catalyst to enable the oxygen assisted cracking and dehydrogenation process continuously. This paper will discuss the development of these catalysts and corresponding operating conditions that give people flexibility of selectively making either light olefins and/or H2 (syngas) depends on what is the desired products for down stream applications. These molecules are derived from high sulphur diesel fuel with minimal heat input to the catalyst. The operating conditions were chosen to allow for the continuous production of alkenes and/or H2 selectively based on applications. We also spent significant efforts to develop the structure-supported catalysts since it is required or could be benefit for certain applications. Through the extensive R&D effort in this arena, we have successfully developed the catalyst and the corresponding reactor technology that allow us to selectively produce light olefins and/or H2 with a simple fixed bed reactor on-board in the auto thermal mode. This presentation will report the progress of our research in this area.