Ceramic membranes for methane conversion

Technical Report · Thu Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 1994

OSTI ID:10194463

Balachandran, U; Dusek, J T; Mieville, R L; Maiya, P S ^[1]; Kleefisch, M S; Pei, S; Kobylinski, T P; Udovich, C A ^[2]

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1. Argonne National Lab., IL (United States). Energy Technology Div.
2. Amoco Research Center, Naperville, IL (United States)

In conventional conversion of methane to syngas, a significant cost of the partial oxidation process is that of the oxygen plant. In this report, the authors offer a technology that is based on dense ceramic membranes and that uses air as the oxidant for methane-conversion reactions, thus eliminating the need for the oxygen plant. Certain ceramic materials exhibit both electronic and ionic conductivities (of particular interest is oxygen-ion conductivity). These materials transport not only oxygen ions (functioning as selective oxygen separators) but also electrons back from the reactor side to the oxygen/reduction interface. No external electrodes are required and if the driving potential of transport is sufficient, the partial-oxidation reactions should be spontaneous. Such a system will operate without an externally applied potential. Oxygen is transported across the ceramic material in the form of oxygen anions, not oxygen molecules. Long tubes of Sr-Fe-Co-O (SFC) membrane were fabricated by plastic extrusion, and thermal stability of the tubes was studied as a function of oxygen partial pressure and high-temperature XRD. Mechanical properties were measured and found to be acceptable for a reactor material. Fracture of certain SFC tubes was the consequence of an oxygen gradient that introduced a volumetric lattice difference between the inner and outer walls. However, tubes made with a particular stoichiometry (SFC-2) provided methane conversion efficiencies of >99% in a reactor and some of these tubes have operated for up to {approx}1,000 h.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Lab., IL (United States). Energy Technology Div.
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-31109-ENG-38
• OSTI ID: 10194463
• Report Number(s): ANL/ET/CP--83730; CONF-9409168--8; ON: DE95002908
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

03 NATURAL GAS
030400
10 SYNTHETIC FUELS
100200
CARBON DIOXIDE
COBALT OXIDES
EFFICIENCY
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FABRICATION
IRON OXIDES
MEMBRANE TRANSPORT
MEMBRANES
METHANE
OXIDATION
OXYGEN
PERFORMANCE TESTING
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
PRODUCTION
PRODUCTS AND BY-PRODUCTS
STRONTIUM OXIDES
SYNTHESIS GAS
X-RAY DIFFRACTION