(275c) The “Dual Challenge” and Natural Gas Conversion Technologies

With an increasing global population and developing middle class, more and more people around the world are looking for affordable, reliable energy solutions to support and improve their standard of living. Natural gas will play an important role in solving the dual energy challenge of providing scalable energy solutions while reducing emissions to address the risk of climate change. Natural gas continues to become more and more abundant, and could be the ideal raw material for production of cleaner-burning, lower carbon fuels, especially if more efficient conversion processes are available. Over the past 50 years, many ideas have been considered, and some have passed into the later stages of development and/or demonstration. More recently, new scientific leads have emerged which could lead to further advances in cost and yield. These include new catalysts, process intensification concepts, materials of construction and a broad range of potential products.