Objectives

In C123 unexploited methane is selectively converted into C3 hydrocarbons, by a combination of Oxidative Conversion of Methane (OCoM) and hydroformylation (HF). OCoM as such comprises the Oxidative Coupling of Methane (OCM) and several different reactions, such as reforming, partial oxidation, ethane dehydrogenation and the water gas shift.

All C123 technologies exist at TRL 3 and the objectives of C123 are the further development to TRL4 and TRL5. For OCoM the main goals are to increase the methane conversion to 50% and include CO2 in the feed. For HF the main goals are to develop more active and stable catalyst that can be operated at higher temperatures without deactivation and at lower pressures without activity loss and to reach higher conversions during the HF of impure gas streams.

This comes down to 3 main objectives:

  • Development of tailored innovative heterogeneous catalysts
  • Development of novel catalytic routes / novel reactor design allowing a comprehensive evaluation of the process performance and the set-up in a circular economy approach to minimize by-products
  • Overall integration and validation of an economically viable, environmentally friendly and socially acceptable process for the conversion of unexploited carbon resources to light hydrocarbons in a relevant environment.

This work is divided into the following work packages:

WP2: Oxidative Conversion of Methane
WP3: Hydroformylation
WP4: Process integration design and validation
WP5: Techno-economic and sustainability assessment