Integrated Membrane Reactor for Enhancing Thermal & Chemical Reactors

With development of shale gas fracking, large amounts of methane and ethane have now become available at low cost. With this low cost ethane it is desirable to convert low cost ethane to high value ethylene. Oxidative dehydrogenation (ODH) for low cost conversion of ethane to ethylene is a potentially attractive route. ODH is an exothermic process for converting ethane to ethylene. By contrast processes today to make ethylene from petroleum are endothermic. Therefore by definition ODH is a heat process intensification process. A major limitation of ODH is the cost of concentrating the 25% ethylene from ODH to 99.9% ethylene (polymer grade ethylene) for chemical processing. CMS has recently developed custom amorphous fluoropolymers (CAF) membranes which show excellent ethylene-ethane flux, selectivity, and stability. This program will modify CAF and associated membranes for separating and concentrating ethylene to make polymer grade ethylene (99.9% ethylene) at costs 25% lower than distillation. CMS prepared and applied enhanced CAF membranes for demonstrating the low cost concentration of 25% ethylene (from the ODH reactor). Phase I is demonstrating process feasibility. Significant work will be done on integrated ODH catalyst and CMS membranes. The catalyst work will be facilitated with The Monnier Group at USC and with Anne Gaffney who is one of the founders of the ODH process. While the majority of work will be done ODH of C2 to C2=, additional work at both CMS and USC will also be done on ODH of propane to C3=. The program will enhance low-cost synthesis of ethylene from shale gas based ethane. This creates significant value added products from ethane.