Syngas

1 Overview

Synthesis gas, or syngas, is a gaseous mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Syngas can be used to derive many chemicals and hydrocarbons. The recoverable oil reserves have an estimated life of 34 years [5]. In addition to the depleting reserves, the price of crude keeps rising. Syngas and the conversion to synthetic fuel can be a valuable technology to deal with this problem. An important attraction of this process is that it does not require any major changes in consumer technology (it can be used in existing automobiles without any modications). The fuels obtained from syngas do not contain sulphur or nitrogen compounds so their combustion in engines leads to reduced environmental pollution [2]. It can be produced by reacting steam and methane at high temperature and in presence of nickel as catalyst. This process is called the Steam Methane Reforming (SMR) process. Syngas can also be produced via solar thermochemical dissociation of metal/metal oxide which has the potential to be a carbon neutral process. Other methods of production include biomass gassication, which involves converting the solid organic materials to carbon monoxide, hydrogen and carbon dioxide.

2
2.1

Production
Steam Methane Reforming

Steam methane reforming is the most common method of producing hydrogen gas. it involves reaction between steam and methane as CH4 + H2 O CO + 3H2 at high temperatures (973 1373K). One of the SMR methods include a ceramic lined tube and N i-based xed catalyst bed [2]. The preheated feed streams CH4 + H2 O and H2 O + O2 are mixed in a burner at the 1

top where partial oxidation of methane occurs. The nal stream reforming takes place in the catalyst bed. Up to 90% methane is converted.

2.2

Two-Step Solar Thermochemical Metal/Metal Oxide Fuel Production Cycles

The production of syngas via Zn/ZnO cycle starts with the solar reactor. Solar energy is collected by heliostat eld and concentrated at an absorption point in a tower. The concentrated solar energy provides heat to dissociate ZnO to Zn(g) + 0.5O2 at 2300K. The products are cooled rapidly to prevent it from recombination in a process called quenching. Part of the resulting Zn(s) is hydrolyzed to produce ZnO and H2 . The other part reduces CO2 to CO and ZnO. The collected ZnO is sent to the solar reactor and the cycle repeats and syngas is collected.

2.3

Biomass Gasication

Conversion of organic and fossil based carbon-rich materials into carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and hydrogen is called gasication. This is achieved by reacting the material at high temperatures (> 973K), without combustion, with a controlled amount of oxygen and/or steam. [wikipedia; could not nd journal articles for this specic overview]

Uses

Syngas can be used to produce a variety of chemicals and fuels like ammonia and synthetic diesel. Syngas itself can be used as a fuel in internal combustion engine [1]. Production of synthetic fuels has been studied briey and presented below. One way to produce synthetic fuels is the Fischer-Tropsch process, which uses puried syngas as an intermediate product. The existing FT plants in the world uses either coal or natural gas as their feedstock. Coal based plants can cost up to 50% more than methane 2

based plants [3]. Dry predicts that nearly all of the new FT plants will be methane-based and geared towards producing high quality diesel fuel [3]. Regardless of the feedstock (either coal or methane), the capital cost of producing and purifying syngas accounts for 60-70% of the total plant cost [3]. In this scenario, the syngas produced from solar thermochemical cycles can have a larger impact on reducing costs and being independent on natural gas or coal. The Fischer-Tropsch process are of two typesLow Temperature Fischer-Tropsch (LTFT) operating at 200-240C and High Temperature Fischer-Tropsch (HTFT) operating at 300350C [4]. According to Dry, a typical FT reaction under normal conditions and with cobalt based catalysts to be:

2.15H2 + CO hydrocarbons + H2 O

(1)

The products can be further processed via the water gas shift reaction 2 to produce desired hydrocarbons.

H2 O + CO CO2 + H2

(2)

The reactions that occur in the Fischer-Tropsch process are highly exothermic. To keep formation of undesired products such as CH4 and other light unintended hydrocarbons low, the heat must be removed rapidly [3]. To manage this problem, reactors have heat transfer systems. There are reactors with large numbers of long narrow tubes that circulate water, classied under multi-tubular xed bed reactors and there are reactors where the catalyst is in uid form and has cooling coils in it, classied under uidized bed reactors [3]. The uidized bed reactors are further categorized into circulating uidized bed (CFB) and xed uidized bed (FFB) reactors. The Fischer-Tropsch diesel produced by the process is of very high quality with cetane number > 70 [3]. Commonly used diesel has cetane numbers up to 55 and the higher the

cetane number, the better the quality of diesel. FT diesel can thus be used to increase the quality of regular diesel from fossil fuels as well. Tests have shown that FT diesel has signicantly lower emission levels [3].

References
[1] Andre L. Boehman and Olivier LeCorre. Combustion of syngas in internal combustion engines. Combustion Science and Technology, 2008. [2] Jean Marie Cormier and Iulian Rusu. Synga production via methane steam reforming with oxygen: plasma reactors versus chemical reactors. Journal of Physics, 2001. [3] M. E. Dry. High quality diesel via the sher-tropsch process - a review. Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology, 2001. [4] M. E. Dry. The sher-tropsch process: 1950-2000. Catalysis Today, 2002. [5] Mark E. Dry. Practical and theoretical aspects of the catalytic sher-tropsch process. Applied Catalysis A: General, 1996.