Hydrocarbon Engineering - March 2017

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March 2017 57 HYDROCARBON
ENGINEERING
A s automobile
manufacturers move
towards higher
compression engines
in anticipation of more
stringent fuel standards, more
high octane components will be
needed in the gasoline pool to
fuel those higher performance
vehicles. Exelus has developed a new
process that converts butanes and
methanol to alkylate. The final product is
a mixture of isoparaffins with a minimal
amount of aromatics, olefins and sulfur content,
making it an ideal gasoline blendstock.
Natural gas revolution
Recent technological advances have enabled vast natural gas
reserves locked in shale formations to be cost effectively tapped for
the first time. Around 80 billion ft3/d of natural gas is produced in
the US, over 70% of which consists of methane. Although methane
is currently used in such important applications as the heating of
homes and the generation of hydrogen for ammonia synthesis, its
potential for the production of liquid fuels has not been realised.
Converting methane (the largest component of natural gas) to
methanol is a well established method for monetising methane.
Unfortunately, methanol’s direct use as a fuel has several barriers,
Mitrajit Mukherjee, Grace Brock, Vamsi Vadhri and Tom Hickey,
Exelus Inc., USA, present a new process that converts butanes
and methanol to alkylate, resulting in minimal aromatics, olefins
and sulfur content.
A VERSATILE
ALKYLATION
ROUTE