Abstract
Ethylene production via oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) represents an interesting route for natural gas upscaling, being the focus of intensive research worldwide. Here, OCM developments are analysed in terms of kinetic mechanisms and respective applications in chemical reactor models, discussing current challenges and directions for further developments. Furthermore, some thermodynamic aspects of the OCM reactions are also revised, providing achievable olefins yields in a wide range of operational reaction conditions. Finally, OCM catalysts are reviewed in terms of respective catalytic performances and thermal stability, providing an executive summary for future studies on OCM economic feasibility.
Highlights
OCM developments are critically revised in terms of kinetic mechanisms and respective applications towards chemical reactor modelling and design, discussing current challenges and directions for further research
Different reactors have been considered for the OCM process, including fluidized bed (FBR) [112,113,114], membrane (MR) [115,116,117] and packed-bed (PBR) reactors [14,18,105,118,119,120,121,122,123], with their advantages, drawbacks and catalytic performances being recently reviewed by Cruellas et al [124]
The present analysis focused on the modelling and simulation of OCM reactors and found that the great majority (48% of a sample of 30 scientific publications) of available studies was dedicated to packedbed reactor (PBR), while Fluidized Bed Reactors bed reactors (FBRs) and MR were investigated in 26 and 9% of the analysed studies, respectively, with the remaining 17% being related to other reactor types, including gas–solid vortex reactors (GSVR) and spouted bed reactors (Figure 14a)
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. OCM catalysts are revised in terms of the respective catalytic performances and thermal stability, providing an executive summary for future studies on OCM economic feasibility. This work is organised as follows: Section 2 presents a bibliometric analysis of OCM scientific publications and patents, highlighting geographic, chronological and topic distributions; Section 3 revises OCM reaction and kinetic models, critically analysing chemical reactor modelling approaches; Section 4 summarises thermodynamic aspects of the OCM reactions and presents original calculations for extents of reaction, focusing on presenting maximum ethylene yields in a wide range of temperatures, pressures and feed compositions; Section 5 discusses OCM catalysts, summarising their performances and main features; Section 6 briefly discusses sustainability aspects of the OCM reactions; and, Section 7 presents the main conclusions and opportunities for future work
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