CO{sub 2} Reuse in Petrochemical Facilities
To address public concerns regarding the consequences of climate change from anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) emissions, the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (DOE/NETL) is actively funding a CO{sub 2} management program to develop technologies capable of mitigating CO{sub 2} emissions from power plant and industrial facilities. Over the past decade, this program has focused on reducing the costs of carbon capture and storage technologies. Recently, DOE/NETL launched an alternative CO{sub 2} mitigation program focused on beneficial CO{sub 2} reuse to support the development of technologies that mitigate emissions by converting CO{sub 2} into valuable chemicals and fuels. RTI, with DOE/NETL support, has been developing an innovative beneficial CO{sub 2} reuse process for converting CO{sub 2} into substitute natural gas (SNG) by using by-product hydrogen (H{sub 2)-containing fuel gas from petrochemical facilities. This process leveraged commercial reactor technology currently used in fluid catalytic crackers in petroleum refining and a novel nickel (Ni)-based catalyst developed by RTI. The goal was to generate an SNG product that meets the pipeline specifications for natural gas, making the SNG product completely compatible with the existing natural gas infrastructure. RTI's technology development efforts focused on demonstrating the technical feasibility of this novel CO{sub 2} reuse process and obtaining the necessary engineering information to design a pilot demonstration unit for converting about 4 tons per day (tons/day) of CO{sub 2} into SNG at a suitable host site. This final report describes the results of the Phase I catalyst and process development efforts. The methanation activity of several commercial fixed-bed catalysts was evaluated under fluidized-bed conditions in a bench-scale reactor to identify catalyst performance targets. RTI developed two fluidizable Ni-based catalyst formulations (Cat-1 and Cat-3) that demonstrated equal or better performance than that of commercial methanation catalysts. The Cat-1 and Cat-3 formulations were successfully scaled up using commercial manufacturing equipment at the Sud-Chemie Inc. pilot-plant facility in Louisville, KY. Pilot transport reactor testing with RTI's Cat-1 formulation at Kellog Brown & Root's Technology Center demonstrated the ability of the process to achieve high single-pass CO{sub 2} conversion. Using information acquired from bench- and pilot-scale testing, a basic engineering design package was prepared for a 4-ton/day CO{sub 2} pilot demonstration unit, including process and instrumentation diagrams, equipment list, control philosophy, and preliminary cost estimate.
- Research Organization:
- RTI International, Research Triangle Park, NC (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- FE0002147
- OSTI ID:
- 1054521
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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