Creating Valuable Products From Wasted Gas
Every day, Alberta oil and gas producers flare and vent the equivalent of 10,000 barrels of oil. (Flaring refers to controlled burning.) The methane and carbon dioxide released contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. Regulators are starting to “shut in” (reduce or suspend production altogether) oil wells in remote areas where it doesn’t make economic sense to build pipelines or where there are low volumes of gas.
As Canada Research Chair in High Temperature High Pressure Heterogeneous Catalysis, Dr. Gregory Patience is developing a technology that will convert wasted natural gas to products such as diesel. Although commercial technology already exists to convert natural gas to other valuable chemicals, it is only cost-effective at very large scale.
Patience and his research team are miniaturizing something called the Fischer-Tropsch technology (a process developed in the 1920s to make diesel from methane) to create a standalone micro-refinery unit that will produce 10 barrels per day green diesel economically.
To do this, the unit first partially oxidizes methane to carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H2) over a heterogeneous catalyst deposited on an exotic iron/chromium/alumina support. In the second step, a nano-cage catalyst reforms these compounds into diesel and water. (A nano-cage catalyst is a simple technique that creates tiny hollow cages of platinum that allow for more potent chemical reactions using less material.)
By using catalysts—and conducting both reactions in the same vessel—this technology is a significant shift in process design and will reduce investment costs. It will also reduce the environmental footprint of Canada’s oil and gas operations.