Catalytic Organic Solid Wastes Upgrading Using Natural Gas for Valuable Commodities Production

随着城市化和工业化的快速发展，越来越多的城市固体废物迅速产生和积累，导致处置成本增加，环境负面影响显著。天然气是化石燃料中最清洁的能源，是加拿大丰富的自然资源。由于其化学惰性和相对较低的体积能量密度，天然气目前主要用于住宅供暖和烹饪，很少用于运输或化工生产。 在此背景下，拟议的研究计划旨在开发一种新技术，同时将上述天然气和城市固体废物(以及其他低成本碳源，如低阶煤和农业、园林和森林废物)转化为有价值的液体商品(如高附加值液体化学品或燃料)。一种名为运输反应堆天然气转换器(TRNGC)的新型反应堆设计将在本申请的资助期内开发。这种创新的反应器由一个反应区和两个连续的气体旋风分离器组成，用于连续提供低成本的碳源，并连续去除焦炭/灰分。由活性金属和多孔铝硅酸盐载体组成的特殊设计的负载型双功能催化剂将在气化/热解区和回收段之间循环，以促进传热，并在连续天然气流动下催化气化/热解反应。TRNGC生产的合成气经过适当的冷凝处理后，将经过一系列净化步骤和水-气变换反应，以获得理想的CO/H2比，然后在另一种新型双床催化剂系统的促进下进行液化过程，在350~450℃的温度下，合成气将首先转化为轻烃混合物，然后根据甲烷和高级烃之间的协同作用形成液态烃产品。整个流程在低压(5兆帕)下运行，大大降低了资本和运营成本。 这一新工艺的成功实施可以在全国范围内转移低成本的碳源流，有助于天然气的利用，同时提供有价值的液体燃料和/或化学品，大幅减少温室气体排放。因此，这一拟议计划有可能提供显著的经济和环境效益，有助于保持加拿大在高效利用可再生能源和清洁能源转换方面的领先地位。

More and more municipal solid wastes have been rapidly generated and accumulated with fast urbanization and industrialization, resulting in increased disposal costs and notable negative environmental impacts. Natural gas (NG), the cleanest energy source among fossil fuels, is an abundant natural resource present in Canada. Due to its chemical inertness and relatively low volumetric energy density, natural gas is currently dominantly used for residential heating and cooking with little use for transportation or chemical production applications. Under such background, the proposed research program aims to develop a novel technology to simultaneously convert both of the aforementioned NG and municipal solid wastes (along with other low cost carbon sources such as low rank coal and agricultural, garden and forest wastes) to valuable liquid commodities (such as high value-added liquid chemicals or fuels). A novel reactor design called Transport Reactor Natural Gas Converter (TRNGC) will be developed in this requested funding period. This innovative reactor is composed of one reaction zone and two consecutive gas cyclones for continuously feeding low cost carbon sources with continuous char/ash removal. A specially designed supported bi-functional catalyst composed of active metal and porous aluminosilicate support will be circulating between gasification/pyrolysis zone and recycle leg to facilitate heat transfer and catalyze gasification/pyrolysis reaction under continuous natural gas flow. After proper condensation for upgraded crude oil collection, the synthetic gas produced from TRNGC will undergo a series of cleanup steps and a water-gas shift reaction to achieve desirable CO to H2 ratio, followed by a liquefaction process under the facilitation of another novel dual-bed catalyst system where syngas will be first converted to a mixture of light hydrocarbons and then form liquid hydrocarbon products based on the synergetic effect existing between methane and higher hydrocarbon at temperature of 350 ~ 450 oC. The whole process is operated under low pressure (<5 MPa), resulting in significant capital and operational cost reductions. The successful implementation of this novel process can divert low cost carbon sources streams nationwide, and contribute to the natural gas utilization, while providing valuable liquid fuels and/or chemicals with significantly reduced greenhouse gas emission. Thus this proposed program has the potential to provide significant economic and environmental benefits, aiding in keeping Canada's leading position in efficient renewable energy utilization and clean energy conversion.