Advances in Liquid Phase Methanol (LPMEOH~TM) and Dimethyl Ether (LPDME~TM) Technology

摘要

Driven by energy needs, environmental concerns and business requirements, there has bene an increasing demand on utilising remote natural gas and developing clean coal technology. This has led to the development of a number of syngas (primarily a mixture of CO and H_2 derived from coal or natural gas ) conversion technologies around the world, among which is out Liquid Phase ~TM (LP) technology. Since later 1980s, under the Clean Coal and Alternative Fuels Contracts from the US Department of Energy (DOE), Air Products & Chemicals, Inc. (APCI) has been developing liquid phase syngas conversion technologies. R&D work have been conducted in our labs featuring 5 autoclave slurray phase reactors. A number of liquid phase processes, including syngas-to-methanol (LPMEOH~TM), syngas-to-Di-Methyl Ether (LPDME~TM), Fischer-Tropsch, water gas shift and iso-butanol dehydration, have been demonstrated at the DOE owned , APCI-operated LaPorte Alternative Fuels Demonstration plant. The efforts have led to the present demonstration of LPMEOH~TM on commercial scale and a recent 10-tons-per-day (TPD) LPDME~TM demonstration at the LaPorte plant. This paper will describe the features, advantages and applications fo the LP technology and the status of our LPMEOH~TM and LPDME~TM technology.