Development of supported ruthenium catalyst ofr SNG process

摘要

High calorific value town gs,mainly methane,is supplied in the major urban centers of Japan such as Tokyo,osaka,Nagoya and so on,whereas liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) ,consisting of a mixture of propane and butane,is stil supplied to more localized areas.The IGF 21 plan has been proposed by te government to integrate the supply of gas.Introduction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility to a local area will require major investment thesupply of gas.Introduction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility to a local area will require major investment costs that will be too expensive for a small gas provider.However,adoption of substitutenatural gas (SNG) is expected to reduce the costs.SNG can be obtained by low temperature steam reforming of LPG at around 450degC wit a low proportion of steam/carbon(S/C).Therefore,SNG catlaysts require higher activity for steam reforming and storng resistance to carbon deposition.A newly developed catalyst consisting of ruthenium,ceria and alumina was used in a preliminarylong run in the laboratory at 450degC with S/C of 0.8using LPG feed,mainly butane,which showed that the catalyst performance was stable even after 8000h.Consequently,evaluation in the pilot plant was perofrmed using streaming heavy naphtha,and the results indicated that the developed catalyst may have the potential for industrial application.