Low-temperature Chemical Looping Reforming Catalystsfor Small-footprint GTL

Over 468 billion cubic feet of natural gas was flared in the United State in 2018. This emitted nearly 25 million tons of CO2 while wasting an important domestic energy resource. This “stranded” natural gas, co-produced by shale oil wells, was flared because it is not cost-effective to transport due to low energy density. Although it would be highly desirable to convert this currently flared natural gas into easily transportable liquid fuels, the complexity of existing gas-to-liquids (GTL) technologies dictates that they cannot be economically scaled down to sizes compatible with typical oil wells, which co- produce 0.1-1.0 MMCF/day of natural gas. We propose a modular, mobile, turnkey GTL plant to convert stranded natural gas into diesel and wax products. This plant is enabled by our transformational Chemical Looping Reforming (CLR) technology. Reformers are the most expensive sections in GTL plants and are difficult to operate at small scales. Our advanced CLR process utilizes specially tailored mixed-metal oxide redox catalysts to partially oxidize (POx) natural gas to hydrogen and carbon monoxide. The regeneration of the redox catalyst in air makes the system heat sufficient while eliminating costly air separation. CLR in conjunction with another redox catalyst that can split water and CO2 POx byproducts, demonstrates significantly higher (“super-equilibrium”) syngas yields. This enables low temperature operation ($3billion/year value creation.