(258a) Development and Evaluation of Oxidative Dehydrogenation Technology for Production of Light Olefins

Light olefins are traditionally produced by the steam pyrolysis of saturated hydrocarbons as well as by recovery from refinery cracking operations. These technologies results in a wide range of byproducts, some valuable and some that need disposal. All of the conventional technology require extensive separation and purification.The technology known as RMD for reaction, membranes and distillation utilizies the M1 catalyst developed by Idaho National Laboratories and features very high selectivity at various levels of conversion in studies on the conversion of ethane to ethylene. Additionally, INL has found that the produced ethylene is refractory in additional reactors. This allows the interchanging of reactors and membranes, both of which provide high concentrations of ethylene. Process development and the associated economic analyses were performed using a cost of production procedure (COP) commonly called a required netback (RNB) analysis. These results were analyzed by incorporating the expected performance of a variety of R_xM_yD_z arrangements with x,y, and z representing the number of the process segments. So for instance, R₂M₁D₁ indicates 2 ODH reactors, 1 facilitated transport (FTS) membrane and one heat pump distillation section. Results indicate that the combination of ODH reactors with FTS membranes is a new route that has much lower variable costs, fixed costs and capital recovery that can reach shutdown economics level versus some existing technology.