Electrochemistry Enhanced Activation of Ethane for Co-Production of Ethylene and Hydrogen with Low-Thermal-Budget and Low-CO2-Emission

Abstract

The shale gas revolution and rapidly increasing demand for hydrogen (for upgrading lower-quality oils and automotive industry), have spurred the development of more energy-efficient and cost-effective approaches to convert natural gas/natural gas liquids into high value-added fuels and chemicals. Ethylene, one of the largest building blocks in petrochemical industry, is mainly manufactured from high temperature steam cracking of ethane or naphtha. This method is energy intensive and represents the single most energy consuming process in the chemical industry. To fully exploit the potential of ethane as feedstock, we demonstrated electrochemistry enhanced co-production of ethylene and hydrogen through non-oxidative dehydrogenation of ethane at temperatures below 600oC with close to theoretical ethane conversion rate and high ethylene yield. Significant reduction in energy consumption and CO2 emission, compared to the commercial ethane steam cracking process was achieved. The remarkable performance is enabled by advanced fabrication of solid oxide proton conducting electrochemical membrane reactors incorporated with highly selective electrocatalysts as well as comprehensive operation optimization.