Design of an Experimentally Simulated Moving Bed Reactor for Oxidative Coupling of Methane
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Date
2017-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
With the recent increase in natural gas production, methane has become an increasingly attractive compound with which to upgrade to higher value products such as ethylene. One method of great interest, the oxidative coupling of methane, has been prevented from commercialization by low yield caused mainly by reaction of intermediates and products with gas phase oxygen. This makes a chemical looping reaction scheme very attractive because in this scheme, oxygen is delivered via the lattice oxygen on a catalytic oxygen carrier (COC) eliminating gas phase oxygen contact with any hydrocarbon species. In a chemical looping scheme, a moving bed reducer reactor is typically used in which the reactant methane gas and solid COC can travel in either co-current or counter-current configurations. These two moving bed configurations were experimentally simulated using two fixed-bed reactors with each fixed-bed reactor containing COC with different degrees of oxidation. From these studies, it is predicted that a co-current moving bed reactor would provide better yields than a counter-current moving bed reactor due to the increased selectivity of the reduced COC that would be present near the gas outlet of the reactor in the co-current configuration. This more selective, reduced COC would minimize over-oxidation of hydrocarbon products at the gas outlet that were formed in earlier stages of the reactor.
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Keywords
Chemical Looping, Oxidative Coupling of Methane, Moving Bed Reactor, Experimental Design