Effect of Ethane and Propane Addition on Acetylene Production in the Partial Oxidation Process of Methane

Wet shale gas contains relatively high concentrations of heavier hydrocarbons. In industry, the cryogenic separation process is used to separate methane and heavier hydrocarbons for the downstream conversion. In this work, the feasibility of direct application of wet gas in the partial oxidation (PDX) process was studied. Flat flame experiments of methane with addition of ethane and propane were conducted using a McKenna reactor. The results showed that the mole fractions of acetylene and CO increased by 15% and 25% when using wet gas as the feedstock. Four detailed chemical mechanisms were verified, and the Curran and modified GRI 3.0 mechanisms gave good predictions of the PDX of wet gas. The modified GRI 3.0 was further used in the three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of a 3-jet reactor at industrial conditions. The results showed that in the wet gas PDX process a higher C2H2 yield was obtained, and the optimal equivalence ratio slightly increased from 4.0 to 4.07 and the optimal quenching position moved from 0.4 to 0.45 m compared with the methane PDX process.