Greentech Lead America: Carbon Sciences, a technology
developer to make transportation fuels from natural gas, announced the test of
a new version of its natural gas dry reforming catalyst that can process CO2
content natural gas at high efficiency.
Resulting in significant economic and environmental
benefits, this breakthrough catalyst may help accelerate the growth of the
emerging natural gas to liquid fuels industry.
While all natural gas fields contain CO2, production is
economically viable only when the CO2 is less than 10 percent of the total
volume. Where the CO2 content is higher, the removal process is prohibitively
expensive, making those fields economically stranded.
According to the U. S. Geological Survey, there are many
gas fields with CO2 concentrations ranging from 10 percent to 99 percent within
the continental U.S., particular in Texas, the Rocky Mountains, and the Gulf
Coast.
“Our catalyst will make these high CO2 gas fields
economically viable, and encourage the pooling of multiple gas fields into much
larger natural gas steams with high CO2 content. Additionally, CO2 captured
from sources such as power plants can be added to low CO2 content natural gas
and used to cost-effectively produce large quantities of clean and green liquid
transportation fuels and industrial chemicals,” said Byron Elton, CEO of Carbon
Sciences.
The company’s successful test feed included CO2, methane
and steam. The initial verification test, performed at 900 degrees Celsius and
elevated pressure, reveals that the Carbon Sciences dry reforming catalyst
functioned at a steady natural gas conversion efficiency of 99 percent with no
indications of catalyst coking or deactivation.
The resulting 2:1 ratio syngas (a hydrogen and carbon
monoxide mixture) is ideally suited for direct use by existing gas-to-liquids
(GTL) processes in the production of liquid transportation fuels such as
gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.
Carbon Sciences is also making progress in the
development of high performance steam reforming catalyst for use in the current
$150 billion hydrogen production market.