Process Design and Intensification of Circulating Catalytic Fluidized Bed Membrane Reactor for Oxidative Coupling of Methane

The catalytic oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) process has received intense interest in the literature due to the potential to directly convert natural gas or methane to value-added chemicals at a reduced cost, energy consumption and carbon emissions when compared to conventional processes. However, major challenges such as low yield, catalyst deactivation, and reactor scale-up still challenge the commercialization of this process. A promising solution to address these challenges is to develop innovative OCM reactor designs leveraging the recent advances in modular process intensification, e.g. membrane reactors. The aim of this work is to design an optimal OCM process at commercial scale leveraging the concept of modular process intensification. We investigate an intensified fluidized bed membrane reactor (FBMR) catalyzed by La2O3/CaO and compare its performance to a conventional fluidized bed reactor (FBR). The use of membrane for oxygen feed distribution has been reported to result in better C2+ yield and selectivity by selectively enhancing the desired reactions.