Methane Soft Oxidation

Default ARPA-E Project Image


Program:
IDEAS
Award:
$500,000
Location:
Des Plaines, Illinois
Status:
ALUMNI
Project Term:
09/07/2016 - 09/30/2017

Technology Description:

Gas Technology Institute (GTI) will develop a sulfur-based methane oxidation process, known as soft oxidation, to convert methane into liquid fuels and chemicals. Current gas-to-liquid technology for converting methane to liquid hydrocarbons requires massive scale to achieve economic production. The large plant size makes this approach unsuitable to address the challenge of distributed methane emissions. Soft oxidation is a method better suited to address this challenge because of its modular nature. It also addresses a major limitation of conventional gas-to-liquid technology: the irreversible conversion of methane and oxygen to carbon dioxide. In this project, GTI will demonstrate and optimize a two-step methane soft oxidation process and develop a fully integrated system that converts methane to liquid hydrocarbons, recovers the valuable liquids and hydrogen gas, and recycles the remaining products. A key difference with traditional oxygen-based approaches is that GTI’s method allows for some hydrogen recovery, whereas in oxygen-based approaches the hydrogen must be consumed completely. Soft oxidation has a higher efficiency because of this, and it lacks the need for complex heat integration and recovery methods that require large scale plants. If successful, this new process could provide an economic pathway to significantly reduce methane emissions through on-site conversion.

Contact

ARPA-E Program Director:
Dr. Marc von Keitz
Project Contact:
Terry Marker
Press and General Inquiries Email:
ARPA-E-Comms@hq.doe.gov
Project Contact Email:
terry.marker@gastechnology.org

Related Projects


Release Date: