From hydrocarbon processing to hydrocarbon synthesis: Advances in catalytic technology

Abstract

Hydrocarbon is a vital kind of chemical compounds to form liquid fuels and polymer monomers. It is the backbone of the national economy and is closely related to people’s lives. Hydrocarbon processing refers to the production of hydrocarbon with different structures through the separation or chemical conversion of petroleum resources, such as refined petroleum products, which is a top-down way. Hydrocarbon processing, including series of chemical conversion reactions such as carbon-carbon bond cleavage, covers the major processes of petroleum refining and petrochemicals, and is the main production route for hydrocarbon products. Hydrocarbon synthesis uses non-petroleum-based resources such as coal, natural gas, and biomass as carbon source, through chemical conversion such as carbon-carbon bond coupling and carbon chain growth. The hydrocarbon synthesis is a route that assemblies small molecules to target hydrocarbon products by bottom-up way. It covers the main processes of the new coal chemical industry and natural gas chemical industry, and is also an important component of the future biomass conversion and renewable energy industry. Hydrocarbon synthesis is an important supplement to current and future production of hydrocarbon. But, the shortage of oil resources is inevitable. The shale gas revolution has also brought new options to the global en-ergy economy. Facing the challenges of resource and environmental, traditional hydrocarbon production technology has been unable to meet the needs of economic development. The sustainable development of the energy and chemical industry is urgent, and the direction is clear. (1) To increase the efficiency of the use of petroleum resources to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. (2) The development of new hydrocarbon synthesis methods based on non-oil resources such as C1 platform reactions. Many new catalytic reaction processes and routes are involved in hydrocarbon processing and hydrocarbon synthe-sis. The catalytic conversion of hydrocarbons constitutes a complex reaction network, thus solving the C–C, C–H bond activation, shape-selectivity conversion, C–C bond coupling and chain growth control is an important problem in cata-lytic research. In particular, in order to realize the industrialization of catalytic technologies such as hydrocarbon pro-cessing and hydrocarbon synthesis, it is necessary to build a bridge from the laboratory (theory) to the industry (engi-neering). The key scientific issues that need to be solved can be summarized as: synergy between important elements such as “systematic vs. elementary”, and “apparent vs. intrinsic”.