(48e) Synthetic Fuels: past, Present and Future

Sustained high oil prices and the growing concerns about ?peak oil' have renewed interest in fuels made from alternative feedstock materials, including natural gas, coal and biomass. These processes go by the acronyms GTL, CTL and BTL for gas-to-liquids, coal-to-liquids and biomass-to-liquids respectively. Although these catchall acronyms cover all manner of processes for generating a range of liquid products, including methanol, ethanol and biodiesel, the highest hopes are pinned on Fischer-Tropsch based systems that produce synthetic transportation fuels. The history of the Fischer-Tropsch process reaches back to the 1920s when Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch, working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute first converted synthesis gas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, into liquid hydrocarbons. Today, multiple world-scale plants are being built to convert low cost, stranded natural gas reserves into salable petroleum products. The future of Fischer-Tropsch processes looks bright with the proliferation of world-scale GTL and CTL plants located near energy deposits and smaller scale facilities to convert offshore associated gas and locally sources biomass to market ready synthetic fuels. Synthetic fuels processes consist of three basic steps: 1) gasification of feedstock material, 2) Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, and 3) hydrocracking. The gasification technology employed is dependent on the feedstock material used. However, the most economically efficient path to synthesis gas is via steam methane reforming. The Fischer-Tropsch process is a catalyzed chemical reaction where synthesis gas is converted into longer chain hydrocarbons, known as waxes. The final step, hydrocracking, is the conversion of longer chain hydrocarbons into salable liquid products. Hydrocracking has historically been performed at refineries, but synthetic fuel processes require this to be done at the production site as the longer chain products from the Fischer-Tropsch process can be a transportation challenge. Microchannel process technology can improve each of these steps by improving efficiency, reducing capital cost and shrinking facility footprints, which is especially important for offshore installations. Although the emphasis today is on world-scale gas-to-liquid processes, smaller distributed synthetic fuel processes have also been identified as an important piece of our energy future. Microchannel technology offers benefits for both scales. Large facilities benefit from the improved efficiency that allows more liquid product to be produced from the same amount of feedstock material. Smaller scale operations are advantaged by lower capital cost and smaller facility footprints. Numerous geopolitical factors, including the war on terrorism and the surging economies of India and China, have pushed the price of oil and natural gas to near historic highs and are expected to keep them at an elevated level for the foreseeable future. To address this global trend, Velocys, along with the U.S. Department of Defense and Total S.A., is developing a microchannel based synthesis fuels process. This presentation will discuss the role of microchannel technology in transforming the various synthetic fuels processes into viable commercial technologies.