Conversion of static sour natural gas to fuels and chemicals
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorRichard K. Lyon
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Abstract
A new cost effective and thermally efficient process for converting nearly valueless resources, such as “static,” lower quality sour natural gas containing hydrogen sulfide, to useable fuels and chemicals, such as hydrogen, methanol and high cetane diesel fuel. The preferred method and apparatus can be used to treat conventional sour gas, i.e., gas having a ratio of H2S to CH4 of at least 0.1 moles and preferably of at least 0.33 moles/mole, using a reforming catalyst and a sulfur capture agent. The process nominally can be carried out using two reactors that repeatedly cycle reactants between two basic process steps—reforming, and air regeneration.
Claims11
A method for converting a sour natural gas stream into syngas containing hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, said syngas being substantially free of hydrogen sulfide, said sour natural gas containing at least 0.1 moles of hydrogen sulfide per mole of methane, said method comprising the steps of:
- reforming a feed stream containing said sour natural gas and steam by passing said feed stream over a metal-based catalyst to capture sulfur and form a metal sulfide, said metal-based catalyst selected from the group consisting essentially of NiO, Fe2O3, MnO, CuO, CoO, CdO and ZnO and mixtures thereof;
- regenerating said metal-based catalyst by contacting said metal sulfide formed during said reforming step with air, wherein the amount of heat consumed in said reforming step is balanced by the heat liberated in said regenerating step.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.