Small-Scale Reactors for Natural Gas Conversion

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Program:
OPEN 2012
Award:
$2,527,500
Location:
Boulder, Colorado
Status:
CANCELLED
Project Term:
05/01/2013 - 06/29/2017

Technology Description:

The University of Colorado, Boulder (CU-Boulder) is using nanotechnology to improve the structure of natural gas-to-liquids catalysts. The greatest difficulty in industrial-scale catalyst activity is temperature control, which can only be solved by improving reactor design. CU-Boulder’s newly structured catalyst creates a small-scale reactor for converting natural gas to liquid fuels that can operate at moderate temperatures. Additionally, CU-Boulder’s small-scale reactors could be located near remote, isolated sources of natural gas, further enabling their use as domestic fuel sources.

Potential Impact:

If successful, CU-Boulder’s small-scale reactors would improve the thermal stability of natural gas conversion systems, resulting in cost and production efficiencies over today’s best systems.

Security:

Increasing the utility of geographically isolated natural gas reserves would decrease U.S. dependence on foreign oil—the transportation sector is the dominant source of this dependence.

Environment:

Trillions of cubic feet of natural gas are burned off, or “flared,” during petroleum refinery. Reactors that capture and convert natural gas into fuel would result in a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the refinery industry.

Economy:

Widespread use of domestic natural gas as transportation fuel could decrease our foreign oil imports, allowing more of our dollars to stay at home.

Contact

ARPA-E Program Director:
Dr. Patrick McGrath
Project Contact:
Prof. Alan Weimer
Press and General Inquiries Email:
ARPA-E-Comms@hq.doe.gov
Project Contact Email:
alan.weimer@colorado.edu

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Release Date:
03/02/2012