Combined hydrogen and oxygen transport ceramic membranes for methane dehydro-aromatisation

在高温下经济有效地分离高纯氢（高于500 ℃）是许多工业过程中的重要步骤，氢输送膜理想地适用于这样的操作，因为它们可以提供对氢输送的高选择性，并且当在催化膜反应器中与合适的催化剂偶联时，它们可以将反应和分离步骤联合收割机组合在一起。一种方法，从而使总的工艺占地面积、能量、公用设施要求和最终的成本最小化。除了氢气去除之外，对于其中由于碳沉积导致的催化剂失活是一个问题的反应，连续和分布式供应氧气以提供原位催化剂再生将是非常有益的。表现出质子、氧离子和电子传导性的陶瓷膜理想地适用于这样的应用，并且将发现在诸如甲烷蒸汽重整、甲烷偶联和芳构化（仅举几例）的过程中的用途。在这个项目中，我们将研究高温陶瓷氢和氧传输膜的发展，用于膜基甲烷芳构化与组合催化剂再生。所采用的膜在所需的操作温度和反应条件下必须是机械和化学稳定的，提供对氢渗透的高选择性以及伴随的高氢通量。尽管甲烷作为化学合成的原料材料具有巨大的潜力，但迄今为止甲烷最广泛的用途是作为燃料，而其作为化学原料的用途主要限于用于生产合成气和氢气的甲烷重整（甲烷重整是迄今为止用于生产氢气的最成熟的技术）。此外，天然气仍然被浪费地燃烧，导致不必要的温室气体排放，伴随着资源浪费。在英国的石油平台，天然气燃烧产生的排放量为每天290万立方米，相当于英国天然气年产量的3%左右。人们注意到，与石油生产有关的最大量的天然气燃烧是缺乏利用基础设施的直接结果。因此，开发一种可行的利用甲烷（作为天然气的主要成分）的方法将具有很大的好处，特别是满足英国政府到2050年将二氧化碳排放量减少80%的目标。该项目旨在证明基于膜的甲烷芳构化工艺的可行性，为参与国和全球的研究界和石油天然气行业带来重大利益。该项目将材料科学和化学工程的几个方面联系在一起，例如真实的操作条件下的膜稳定性和工业利益催化过程的优化，同时致力于甲烷利用这一非常有趣的问题的实际解决方案。

The costs-effective separation of high purity hydrogen at high temperatures (above 500 degC) is an important step in many industrial processes such as methane reforming, biomass gasification etc. Hydrogen transport membranes are ideally suited for such operations as they can provide high selectivity towards hydrogen transport and when coupled with appropriate catalysts in a catalytic membrane reactor they can combine the reaction and separation step in one processes thus minimising the overall process footprint, energy, utilities requirements and ultimately cost. In addition to hydrogen removal, for reactions where catalyst deactivation due to carbon deposition is an issue, the continuous and distributed supply of oxygen to provide in situ catalyst regeneration would be highly beneficial. Ceramic membranes that exhibit protonic, oxygen ion and electronic conductivity are ideally suited for such applications and would find use in processes such as methane steam reforming, methane coupling and aromatisation to name but a few. In this project we will investigate the development of high temperature ceramic hydrogen and oxygen transport membranes to be used in membrane-based methane aromatisation with combined catalyst regeneration. The employed membranes must be both mechanically and chemically stable at the required temperature of operation and reaction conditions, providing high selectivity towards hydrogen permeation with concomitant high hydrogen fluxes. Despite the huge potential methane presents as a feedstock material for chemical synthesis, to date the most widespread use of methane is as a fuel, while its use as a chemical feedstock is mainly limited to methane reforming for the production of synthesis gas and hydrogen (methane reforming is the most mature technology to date for the production of hydrogen). In addition, natural gas is still wastefully flared resulting in unnecessary greenhouse emissions with a concomitant resource waste. At UK-based oil platforms emissions due to natural gas flaring amount to 2.9 million cubic meters per day- equivalent to approximately 3% of the yearly total UK gas gas production. It has been noted that the largest amount of gas flared in association with oil production is a direct result of the lack of infrastructure for its utilisation. Therefore, the development of a viable process for utilisation of methane (as the main constituent of natural gas) will be of great benefit, in particular with meeting the UK Government's target of reducing CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050. The proposed project aims to demonstrate the feasibility of a membrane-based methane aromatisation process with significant benefits for the research community and the oil and gas industry both in the participating countries and worldwide. This project links together several aspects of materials science and chemical engineering e.g. membrane stability under real operating conditions and optimisation of a catalytic process of industrial interest, while working towards a practical solution of the very interesting problem of methane utilisation.