74
Advanced
Fischer-Tropsch Technology for the 21st Century--Exelus,
Inc., 99 Dorsa Avenue,
Livingston, NJ
07039-1037; 973-740-2350
Mr. Mitrajit Mukkerjee, Principal Investigator, mm_exelus@hotmail.com
Mr.
Mitrajit Mukkerjee, Business Official, mm_exelus@hotmail.com
DOE
Grant No. DE-FG02-03ER83653
Amount: $721,678
Converting natural gas to liquids will enable the
economic development of stranded gas reserves, which are estimated at more than
4,000 trillion cubic feet and account for about 80% of all known gas reserves
worldwide. Initial gas-to-liquids (GTL) technologies, implemented in the 1980s
and early 1990s, were not commercially successful – the main reason being that
they were far too expensive. This
project will develop a practical Fischer-Tropsch (FT) technology, using a
multifunctional catalyst, that has the potential to reduce costs of the FT
portion of a GTL facility by 35% or more. The
cost reduction potential of this approach should provide a very strong
springboard for overall GTL economic viability.
In
Phase I, the hydrodynamic aspects of the multifunctional catalyst were studied,
preliminary kinetics of the FT reaction were established to enable the
multifunctional FT catalyst to be compared to a conventional catalyst, and the
viability of the multi-functional catalyst was proven in a three-phase reactor.
In Phase II, the catalyst system will be optimized using a reactor model
and tested under a range of process conditions. Stability
tests will confirm the deactivation characteristics of the catalyst, and an
economic evalutaion will establish the viability of this new FT process.
Commercial
Applications and Other Benefits as
described by awardee: The
technology has the potential to reduce both fixed and variable costs by allowing
simpler reactor designs and reducing raw-material consumption through better
product selectivity. It could be applied to a wide variety of multi-phase
reactions, such as the cost-effective conversion of stranded natural gas to
clean-fuels via the Fischer-Tropsch’s reaction.