A recent press release from Haldor Topsoe offers so many key words for further
research, it is hard to know where to start. But we’ll try.
First, a summary of the press release …
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By Svend Ravn, 28.06.2019
•The new plant monetizes Turkmenistan’s huge natural gas resources by producing
15,500 barrels per day of high-value gasoline.
•The plant is based on Haldor Topsoe’s advanced TIGAS™
technology and is the only one of its kind in the world.
•Production of gasoline from natural gas is an attractive option in areas with
abundant gas resources, and several companies consider following the Turkmen
example. Lately, an American company has signed a basic engineering and license
agreement for Topsoe’s TIGAS™ solution.
The plant is an important step forward in Turkmenistan’s plan to monetize the
country’s huge natural gas resource – the fourth-largest in the world – and
diversify its export potential. In addition, the production will supply the
Turkmen home market with synthetic gasoline that complies with the highest
environmental standards, contains no sulfur and very little unwanted
byproducts.
The contract to build the plant has been awarded by the national gas company Turkmengas and is based on Topsoe’s proprietary
end-to-end technology TIGAS™. The TIGAS™ solution is based on industry-proven
Topsoe technologies and catalysts, among those the proprietary SynCOR™
technology. Utilization is very high with gasoline making up more than 85% of
the product stream and 11-13% valuable liquefied gases (LPG). The TIGAS™
process can produce gasoline in compliance with varying national
specifications.
Topsoe has supplied license, engineering, catalysts and hardware such as ATR
burner, reactors and boilers for the plant. Kawasaki Heavy Industries was the
EPC contractor, and Rönesans was responsible for erection.
source: https://blog.topsoe.com/worlds-only-natural-gas-to-gasoline-plant-in-operation-in-turkmenistan?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=74155944&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9uze_JtxWF8RvaHE0VFslDQEuKSiv-s3gweCSOtryF36qRvDjoqHZe6eg0JGKrGVFfHVDdnzf1Aa426RyFNOQBb9_jLw&_hsmi=74155944
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So, as impressive as this sounds, how do we get beyond the breathless verbiage
of the press release to a more objective view of the technology?
TIP:
Google® natural
gas-to-gasoline
Here are two results from the keyword search …
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Natural Gas to Gasoline
A firm claims to have a
cheaper way to harness natural gas.
by Tyler Hamilton
Technology Review, Aug 15, 2008
[ EXCERPTS ]
A Texas company says that it has developed a cheaper and cleaner way to convert
natural gas into gasoline and other liquid fuels, making it economical to tap
natural-gas reserves that in the past have been too small or remote to develop.
Fuel efficient: Synfuels has operated a
demonstration facility in Texas since 2005. The company says that its
gas-to-liquid technology is cost efficient enough to allow natural gas to be
converted into gasoline.
The company behind the technology, Dallas-based Synfuels International, says
that the process uses fewer steps and is far more efficient than more
established techniques based on the Fischer-Tropsch process. This process
converts natural gas into syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide; a
catalyst then causes the carbon and hydrogen to reconnect in new compounds,
such as alcohols and fuels. Nazi Germany used the Fischer-Tropsch process to
convert coal and coal-bed methane into diesel during World War II.
A Synfuels gas-to-liquids (GTL) refinery goes through several steps to convert
natural gas into gasoline but claims to do so with better overall efficiency.
First, natural gas is broken down, or “cracked,” under high temperatures into
acetylene, a simpler hydrocarbon. A separate liquid-phase step involving a
proprietary catalyst then converts 98 percent of the acetylene into ethylene, a
more complex hydrocarbon. This ethylene can then easily be converted into a
number of fuel products, including high-octane gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.
And the end product is free of sulfur.
Texas A&M University licensed its approach to
Synfuels and partly owns the company, which has been operating a $50
million demonstration plant in Texas since 2005 and says that it is close to
signing a deal for its first commercial refinery near Kuwait City.
But Synfuels isn’t alone in trying to make GTL more economical. Gas Reaction Technologies, a spinoff from the University of California, Santa Barbara, has developed
a process that converts natural gas into bromine-based compounds that are later
converted into liquid fuels.
Read the full text at: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/410611/natural-gas-to-gasoline/
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How to Turn Cheap Natural Gas into Low-Carbon Gasoline
They key? A genetically
modified virus.
Todd Woody
The Atlantic, May 21, 2014
[ EXCERPTS ]
Open a garage door in Silicon Valley and you’re likely to find some kind of
technology under development by an enterprising entrepreneur. But a gasoline
refinery?
That’s what you’ll see in the back of Siluria
Technologies’ outpost in an anonymous office park by San Francisco Bay.
A contraption of pipes, tubing and metal cylinders of various sizes is
producing low-carbon gasoline not by refining petroleum but converting methane
into fuel through the use of a catalyst grown from a genetically modified
virus.
This is not how ExxonMobil makes gasoline.
But the result is the same. Eric Scher, Siluria’s vice president of research
and development, opens up a bottle of clear liquid produced by the pilot
project and invites me to take a sniff. Yep, it’s pure petrol but without a
drop of petroleum. There is one other key difference: Siluria says its gasoline
carries half the carbon footprint of fuel derived from oil.
Using technology developed by MIT professor and Siluria
director Angela Belcher, the company’s oxidative coupling of methane
process directly converts methane into ethylene through the use of a catalyst
that doesn’t consume energy. Ethylene, a key component of many petrochemicals,
is itself a $150 billion annual business. The ethylene then can be converted to
gasoline, diesel or jet fuel through Siluria’s process.
Julia Allen, an analyst with market research firm Lux Research, noted that
Siluria is one of many companies trying to exploit supplies of cheap natural
gas to make products but that its technology appears to be unique.
Read the full text at: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/how-a-silicon-valley-startup-is-turning-natural-gas-into-gasoline/371310/
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Keywords and phrases you can use to continue your research are highlighted in
red in the above article excerpts.
For example …
TIP: Google® MIT Siluria Angela Belcher
Incidentally, if you need to refresh your memory as to what gas to liquids technology is, Wikipedia has a useful
article. See below …
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Gas to liquids
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Expensive LNG tankers are required to transport methane.
Gas to liquids (GTL) is a refinery process to convert natural gas or other
gaseous hydrocarbons into longer-chain hydrocarbons, such as gasoline or diesel
fuel. Methane-rich gases are converted into liquid synthetic fuels. Two general
strategies exist: (i) direct partial combustion of methane to methanol and (ii)
Fischer–Tropsch-like processes that convert carbon monoxide and hydrogen into hydrocarbons.
Strategy ii is followed by diverse methods to convert the hydrogen-carbon
monoxide mixtures to liquids. Direct partial combustion has been demonstrated
in nature but not replicated commercially. Technologies reliant on partial
combustion have been commercialized mainly in regions where natural gas is
inexpensive.[1][2]
The motivation for GTL is to produce liquid fuels, which are more readily
transported than methane. Methane must be cooled below its critical temperature
of -82.3 °C in order to be liquified under pressure. Because of the associated
cryogenic apparatus, LNG tankers are expensive, not to mention potentially
dangerous. Methanol is a conveniently handled combustible liquid, but its
energy density is half of that of gasoline.[3]
Read the full article at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_to_liquids
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