41
Millisecond
Contact Time Reactors for Oxidative Coupling of Methane--Mesoscopic
Devices, LLC, 510 Compton Street, Suite 106, Broomfield, CO
80020; 303-366-6968
Dr.
Jerry L. Martin, Principal Investigator, jmartin@mesocopic.com
Ms.
Christine Martin, Business Official, cmartin@mesoscopic.com
DOE
Grant No. DE-FG03-02ER83496
Amount:
$100,000
Large
amounts of natural gas are located in fields that are too far from markets to be
economically viable. If the natural
gas from these fields could be converted to a liquid, it could be transported to
markets using existing oil pipelines or ships.
This project will demonstrate a compact device for converting methane
into ethane, a critical first step in the gas-to-liquids process. This
new approach, using chemical reactors capable of very fast heating and cooling
rates, will improve the efficiency of the gas-to-liquids process and reduce the
cost of the conversion reactors. A
chemical and kinetic model of the methane-to-ethane conversion reactor will be
created in Phase I. The model will
be used to design a short-contact-time reactor and associated heat exchangers. Bench-scale
reactors and heat exchangers will be built and tested to demonstrate
feasibility. A complete
methane-to-ethane system, to be built in Phase II, will be designed.
Commercial
Applications and Other Benefits
as described by the awardee: A
reactor capable of converting natural gas to chemicals that are liquid at room
temperature should enable remote gas wells to economically bring their resource
to market. The reactor also would
have applications in refineries and chemical process plants, where it would
reduce the cost and size of chemical reactors.