LNG cracker? Seems C2= and C3= yields would be low, and too much heavies instead. And if I remember, Dow really isn't into the Aromatics business. Interesting.
Not cracking. Coupling.
Oxidative coupling of methane
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxidative_coupling_of_methaneThe oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) is a type of chemical reaction discovered in the 1980s for the direct conversion of natural gas, primarily consisting of methane, into value-added chemicals. Direct conversion of methane into other useful products is one of the most challenging subjects to be studied in heterogeneous catalysis.[1] Methane activation is difficult because of its thermodynamic stability with a noble gas like electronic configuration. The tetrahedral arrangement of strong C–H bonds (435 kJ/mol) offer no functional group, magnetic moments or polar distributions to undergo chemical attack. This makes methane less reactive than nearly all of its conversion products, limiting efficient utilization of natural gas, the world’s most abundant petrochemical resource.
Ethylene production
The principal product of OCM is ethylene, the world’s largest commodity chemical and the chemical industry's fundamental building block. While converting methane to ethylene would offer enormous economic benefits, it is a major scientific challenge. Thirty years of research failed to produce a commercial OCM catalyst, preventing this process from commercial applications.[2]
Ethylene production is an estimated $160 billion/year.[citation needed] Ethylene derivatives are found in food packaging, eyeglasses, cars, medical devices, lubricants, engine coolants and liquid crystal displays.[citation needed] Ethylene production by steam cracking consumes large amounts of energy, uses valuable oil fractions, such as naphtha and is the largest contributor to Greenhouse gas emissions in the chemical industry.[citation needed]
The oxidative coupling of methane to ethylene is written below:[3][4]
2CH
4 + O
2 → C
2H
4 + 2H
2O
The reaction is exothermic (∆H = -280 kJ/mol) and occurs at high temperatures (750–950 ˚C).[5] In the reaction, methane (CH
4) is activated heterogeneously on the catalyst surface, forming methyl free radicals, which then couple in the gas phase to form ethane (C
2H
6). The ethane subsequently undergoes dehydrogenation to form ethylene (C
2H
4). The yield of the desired C
2 products is reduced by non-selective reactions of methyl radicals with the surface and oxygen in the gas phase, which produce (undesirable) carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.
New plant directly converts natural gas to ethylene http://www.processingmagazine.com/new-plant-directly-converts-natural-gas-to-ethylene/A new gas-to-ethylene plant has been commissioned by Siluria Technologies, a San Francisco company that specializes in technology for converting natural gas into fuels and chemicals.
According to Siluria, its new facility will enable natural gas to supplement crude oil as the basis for transportation fuels, commodity chemicals and plastics. This adds value to natural gas resources while also reducing the cost of producing chemicals, plastics and fuels because natural gas is cheaper and more plentiful than crude oil. In turn, that could result in lower prices paid by consumers.
The demonstration plant in La Porte, Texas, is the first to produce ethylene directly from natural gas using Siluria's Oxidative Coupling of Methane (OCM) technology, an efficient catalytic process which the company says is more scalable, more environmentally friendly and more cost-effective in many settings than current methods of production.
