Dennis J. O'Rear

Concepts for reduction in CO2 emissions in GTL facilities

This chapter explores improvements over the conventional amine scrubbing/sequestration system. The two general approaches are improved absorption systems and reaction systems. Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) of Gas-To-Liquids (GTL) processes and conventional petroleum refining have found comparable Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. In the GTL system, higher GHG emissions are associated with the production phase are offset by lower GHG emissions in the use phase. While about 1/3rd of the carbon in the natural gas ends up as CO 2 during the GTL process step, portions of this CO 2 are concentrated in various streams in the process. LCA studies have indicated that conventional amine scrubbing coupled with sequestration can be used to capture most of this CO 2 thus giving GTL an advantage over conventional refinery based systems. However, the conventional amine scrubbing/sequestration approach suffers a high capital cost—approximately 30% of the costs to make the syngas— primarily associated with compressing the captured CO 2 . In the end, the chapter discusses that the presence of high concentrations of CO 2 at elevated pressures in the GTL process offers some unique opportunities to reduce CO 2 emissions. These concepts can be extended to purification of CO 2 -laden natural gas and to hydrogen or power production from coal or heavy oil.

Synthesis of 2,6-dimethylnaphthalene from pentenes and toluene

Abstract We report a new technology of more efficiently synthesizing 2,6-dimethylnaphthalene (2,6-DMN) by using pentenes and toluene as low cost feedstocks. The output of 2,6-DMN is maximized and a new technical breakthrough has been made by developing new chemistry with zeolite-based catalysts via a novel hydroisomerization-dehydrogenation sequence.