(489e) Chemical Looping Carbon Neutral and Carbon Negative Schemes for a Gas to Liquid Fuel Facility Thermodynamic, Techno-Economic and Experimental Analysis

Carbon Capture Utilization and Sequestration (CCUS) is also a grand challenge for modern chemical engineers. Many new technologies strive to implement either CO₂ capture or CO₂ utilization, but the two processes are rarely thought of as mutually inclusive. In order to have a meaningful impact on the mitigation of CO₂ emissions it is paramount that CO₂ capture and utilization or sequestration technologies are developed in conjunction with each other. On a commercial scale, a fossil fuel process involving unprecedented simultaneous capture and utilization of CO₂ can be transformational and disruptive in conventional CO₂utilization and carbon capture markets. The OSU carbon neutral and carbon negative schemes presented using the methane to syngas process for liquid fuels production as a model example.

The methane to syngas (MTS) process developed at The Ohio State University (OSU) can efficiently convert methane to liquid transportation fuels and high value chemicals by producing a syngas of high purity with a desired H₂:CO molar ratio in a single step from natural gas while avoiding the use of catalysts, steam, and molecular oxygen produced from an air separation unit. This unique feature of the MTS process can lead to a dramatic reduction of the capital cost required for, as an example, the gas to liquid (GTL) plant to as low as $65,100/(bbl/day) from $86,200/(bbl/day) required for conventional auto-thermal reforming (ATR) process. Such a substantial reduction in the capital cost, confirmed by a third party engineering firm WorleyParsons, is due to a >60% reduction in capital investment for the syngas production unit by the MTS process, as compared to ATR. It, thus, allows the MTS process to remain economically competitive even with low West Texas Intermediate crude oil prices ( ~$35/bbl for a natural gas cost of $3/MMBTU). This presentation initially presents will focus on presenting a detailed thermodynamic sensitivity coupled with a comprehensive techno-economic analysis (TEA) comparison to a conventional auto-thermal reforming technology for producing 50,000 bpd of liquid fuels from natural gas. This will be followed by the presentation of the design approach and philosophy used for developing a process performance model of the MTS technology and integrating it into a reference GTL facility, performing necessary heat and mass balance calculations, developing equipment configurations and lists, assessing capital and operating costs, and performing an initial and final economic evaluation to assess the costs and benefits of the MTS technology. Finally, the effect of application of the carbon negative and carbon neutral concept schemes to the developed TEA will be presented in terms of percentage improvement in carbon efficiency for liquid fuel production, comparison to the base MTS case TEA, variation of technology parameters which are important in terms of being de-risked and experimental validation of the carbon neutral and carbon negative schemes will be discussed