RAPID

Ethane can represent up to 20 vol.% of shale-gas, exceeding the 10 vol. % allowed in “pipeline-quality” natural gas. Each year, over 210 million barrels (liquid equivalent) of ethane are rejected in the lower 48 states. Upgrading low- to negative-value ethane to easily transportable liquid fuels is a promising solution to this supply glut. The key to this process is development of modular systems that can operate economically at stranded sites. Conventional gas-to-liquids (GTL) technologies face significant challenges such as high capital cost and limited efficiency. This project will develop a fundamentally improved modular ethane-to-liquids (M-ETL) concept. The proposed M-ETL technology uses a modular Chemical Looping-Oxidative Dehydrogenation (CL-ODH) system to convert ethane and natural gas liquids (NGLs) efficiently into olefins (primarily ethylene) via cyclic redox reactions of highly-effective redox catalyst particles. The resulting olefins are converted to gasoline and mid-distillate products via oligomerization. The proposed project will also advance the M-ETL technology to make it ready for full-scale demonstration. A pilot-scale testbed will be designed and constructed for CL-ODH demonstration. The reactor channels of the testbed will be at a scale comparable to those of the proposed modular system.