Oxidative coupling of methane to ethylene: Development of membrane reactor

The oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) reaction has attracted tremendous interest and research efforts from both scientific and industrial communities due to its promising method to synthesize ethylene from natural gas for the future market. The yield and selectivity of the desirable products so far achieved using the conventional packed-bed reactor is less than the targets required to be economically feasible (>35%). Further improvements could be obtained by using different reactor configuration at their optimal operating conditions. Suitable membrane reactor technology will be expected to have an impact on gas distribution and allow reactions to be performed at high temperatures with higher yields than those achievable with the conventional reactors. Furthermore, developing a model and its validation using experimental data will be useful for design, optimization and scale-up studies of the OCM process.