A Scale Up Reactor for a Novel Quartz Based Methane Aromatization Catalyst

The United States chemical market relies on many petroleum based chemicals, such as ethylene, benzene, or toluene, as building blocks for other chemical products. Recently, the United States has put much effort into recovering the abundant amounts of shale gas. The Department of Energy is seeking novel catalytic processes to help produce from natural gas the same chemicals that historically have had a petroleum based feedstock. Engineers at Advanced Cooling Technologies propose to assist the University of Maryland in scaling up and commercializing their novel catalyst technology that is capable of converting shale gas into the aforementioned chemical building blocks. Currently in development at the University of Maryland, there is a novel quartz based catalyst that shows promising conversion of methane to high value products. It is a non-oxidative process that requires careful thermal management to maintain optimal reaction conditions. Advanced Cooling Technologies will provide an isothermal environment for the catalyst in an effort to scale up the sensitive process. In Phase I, we will begin with continued testing at University of Maryland’s facilities with a methane feedstock and bench scale reactors. At the same time, subcontractors at Environmental Standards Inc. will provide advanced modeling of the catalyst surface to help guide the research towards optimal reactor conditions. This will also help Advanced Cooling Technologies design an optimal scale up reactor for testing. Advanced Cooling Technologies will conduct testing in the scale up reactor with a methane feedstock by the end of phase I to prove the principle of the design. Advanced Cooling Technologies predicts that if we are successful in phase I at demonstrating the capability of our isothermal reactors, there will be high interested from existing energy companies in licensing our product. Phase II will allow us to produce larger reactors and test with natural gas feed. This will allow us to explore further optimization and test the full range of operation of the reactor.