Oxidative processes in natural gas conversion

The abundant natural gas available globally can be better utilized by increasing its use as a source of chemicals in place of its predominant use as fuel today. Most of the promising processes for the conversion of natural gas to useful chemicals suffer from high temperature, carbon formation, poor selectivity and low conversion. They are also problematic in operation, require rapid quenching and are not energy efficient. In recent years, catalytic oxidation processes for natural gas conversion have attracted the attention of researchers in industry and academia. Three processes for oxidative conversion of particular interests today are: partial oxidation to methanol, oxidative coupling to ethylene and partial oxidation to syngas. The challenges encountered in the commercialization of these processes are quite similar. It is the intent of this paper to bring these similarities in focus so that a coherent plan of investigation to develop workable technologies for these processes can be formulated. These processes look very attractive in theory, but have so far eluded any promise of success commercially. Effective catalysts have not yet been applied, suitable reactor configurations have not evolved, and the problems of high temperature operation and safety have not been addressed. Preliminary economic calculations have produced only mixed results, depending somewhat on the inclination of the authors. The need to further develop these processes as well as other processes for the conversion of natural gas to useful chemicals remains strong.