Low Cost Olefin Production from Shale Gas by Laser Enhanced Pyrolysis through Spatial Beam Decoherence

The new shale oil and gas boom in the United States has propelled the US to the largest oil and gas producer in the world. A consequence of this prosperity is an oversupply of shale gas on the market. With steady growth in the ethylene market at 4 - 5% per year, new ethylene production capacity near the source of shale gas would create a valuable market for excess shale gas and reduce the flaring of shale gas in the oil fields. However, conventional thermal crackers for ethylene plants have capital costs in the billions of dollars, imposing a very high barrier to entry for new plant capacity. Solid Cell will develop an innovative low cost shale gas olefin production process that can be economically sited at the point of shale gas production. Recent work in laser-enhanced catalytic pyrolysis of ethane has demonstrated much higher selectivity for ethylene at a significantly lower reactor wall temperature. The lower wall temperature of the reactor reduces material constraints and unwanted by-product formation. The higher selectivity simplifies downstream separation processes, resulting in substantial cost savings. In the The overall objective of the Phase I program is to produce an economical and scalable olefin production process. This will be accomplished by performing a feasibility study to quantify the capital and operating costs of a distributive olefin production plant near shale gas and oil fields; and a proof-of-concept experiment to convert the alkane components in shale gas to ethylene and/or propylene at significantly lower reactor wall temperatures, higher selectivities, and with less by-product formation using laser enhanced catalytic pyrolysis in place of conventional pyrolysis technology. The commercial application will be the economical conversion of shale gas resources, that are otherwise flared to atmosphere, to olefins, which are the largest consumed building blocks for chemicals and petrochemicals in the world. One-third of the shale gas is flared due to oversupply and lack of plant capacity to process the shale gas. This project will investigate a new process for converting shale gas to olefins, which are the most consumed building blocks for chemicals and petrochemicals in the world today.