Miniplant-Scale Analysis of Oxidative Coupling of Methane Process

Abstract

For more than three decades, Oxidative Coupling of Methane (OCM) process has been comprehensively investigated as an attractive alternative for the commercially available ethylene production technologies such as ethane and naphtha cracking. Developing a suitable catalyst and proper reactor feeding policy, reviewing and deploying the efficient methods in the separation and purification of the undesired and desired products, possible energy saving and process intensification in different sections of the OCM process, each has been the subject of many researches in the past. In this paper, the interconnections of these aspects will be addressed by reviewing the performance of different alternative structures and unit operations in different sections of the OCM process. As a systematic approach in this analysis, a concurrent engineering approach supported by the experimental data which was extracted from an OCM miniplant scale facility was applied. Using an efficient porous packed bed membrane reactor and a proper set of operating conditions, up to 25% C₂-yield, 20% C₂H₄-yield, and 52% C₂H₄-selectivity and the highest observed fluidized bed reactor C₂-yield was achieved in this OCM miniplant. This experimental analysis was performed in the chair of process dynamics and operation at Berlin Institute of Technology under the main framework of Unifying Concepts in Catalysis (UniCat) project. The economic analysis of the industrial-scale operation showed promising potentials and also advantages of the final proposed OCM process-structure in this research.