DKRW Selects ExxonMobil’s Methanol-to-Gasoline (MTG) Technology for Coal-to-Liquids Project

www.greencarcongress.com ^ | 17-17-2007 | Staff

[Red Badger]

MTG is one of the pathways for converting syngas to transportation fuel. Both the Fischer-Tropsch and MTG processes are 3-step processes. Thermal efficiencies are essentially governed by the thermal efficiencies of the syngas production process and feed. Click to enlarge. Source: ExxonMobil and Uhde

DKRW Advanced Fuels (DKRW) has selected ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company’s (EMRE) methanol-to-gasoline (MTG) technology as part of DKRW’s coal to liquids (CTL) project in Medicine Bow, WY. DKRW recently stated that it has switched the initial finished product of its planned CTL plant from diesel to gasoline.

The Medicine Bow project will gasify the coal, convert the synthetic gas to methanol, and then convert the methanol to gasoline via the MTG process. The plant will produce up to 20,000 barrels per day of transportation fuels, electricity, steam, off-gas, slag, chemicals (including sulfur), other fuels and energy products which will be sold into the market. The plant intends to capture CO2 emissions from the process and send it to northeast Wyoming for use in enhanced oil recovery projects.

The approximately 15,000 barrel per calendar day MTG unit will be based on commercially proven technology which incorporates improvements since the technology was originally commercialized by Mobil 20 years ago in New Zealand.

Mobil (now ExxonMobil) began with a 4 bpd pilot plant in the US, then scaled up pilot operations to 100 bpd in Germany (with Uhde). In 1979, the New Zealand government decided to build a commercial 14,500 bpd plant in Montunui, NZ, owned 75% by the NZ government, 25% by Mobil. The plant started up in 1985 and operated successfully for ~10 years till conversion to chemical grade Methanol production.

The conversion of methanol to hydrocarbons and water is virtually complete and essentially stoichiometric in the MTG process. The reaction is exothermic with the reaction heat managed by splitting the conversion in two parts. In the first part, methanol is converted to an equilibrium mixture of methanol, dimethyl ether (DME), and water. In the second part, the equilibrium mixture is mixed with recycle gas and passed over a shape-selective catalyst to form hydrocarbons and water. Most of the hydrocarbon product boils in the gasoline boiling range. The low-sulfur, low-benzene gasoline product from the process is a premium quality clean gasoline and can be blended with refinery gasoline directly or sold separately.

From 1,000 tons of methanol, the process will produce 387 tonnes of gasoline, 46 tonnes of LPG, 7 tonnes of fuel gas and 560 tonnes of water, which is recycled as process water.

In 2006, China-based JAM (Shanxi Jincheng Anthracite Coal Mining Co. Ltd. ) awarded a contract to Uhde for the engineering and supply of a coal-based MTG plant. (Uhde licenses the MTG technology from EMRE.)

The new MTG plant is part of a complex on a pilot-plant scale, which is being constructed at Jincheng, Shanxi Province, some 600km south-west of Beijing. This complex also includes a fluidized-bed hard-coal gasification plant and a methanol plant. It is planned to produce 100,000 tonnes of gasoline annually from the year 2008.

Resources

*

An Alternative Route for Coal to Liquids: Methanol-to-Gasoline (MTG) Technology (ExxonMobil, Uhde) *

ExxonMobil Methanol-to-Gasoline *

Sigmund M. Csicsery, “Catalysis by shape selective zeolites — science and technology” Pure & Appl. Chem., Vol. 58, No. 6, pp. 841—856, 1986. *

Syngas Chemistry: Key Technology for the 21st Century (BP)

[Red Badger]

Puzzling.....why not just make diesel (coal oil) fuel and save all that extra energy? This is illogical.........

[Red Badger]

Rest In Peace, old friend, your work is finished.....

If you want ON or OFF the DIESEL ”KnOcK” LIST just FReepmail me.....

This is a fairly HIGH VOLUME ping list on some days.....

[glide625]

It’s extremely illogical. I’ve puzzled on that for quite some time and I think it’s because, unlike the wily Japs and Euro’s the managment mush heads at Ford/GM, (now honestly, how can anyone lose money every year selling a billion Chevy Silverado’s a year. If they can do that, they could tank MickyD’s) don’t have the diesel technology for a small, powerful 4 banger diesel mated to a decent transmission. Ultimately, if this goes the way of Europe where more than 50% of sales now are diesel, the dummies at GM will have to buy engines from Toyota to stay in business.

[Spktyr]

Well, GM at least is going to start deploying more and more diesels.

I think what this company is thinking is that they want to service the existing fleet, as their studies may indicate that biodiesel will end up being cheaper than Fischer-Tropsch.

[Kellis91789]

Or they could stop at the methanol stage and simply sell that. Getting to the methanol stage is only 50 cents a gallon, right ? It only adds $100 to the cost of a gasoline vehicle to make it a Flex Fuel Vehicle that can run on any mix of gasoline or methanol. Much cheaper for Ford/GM to do that than re-engineer around diesels.

Wouldn’t switching to diesel engines mean you need a different automatic transmission as well as all the engine accessories — power steering pump, air conditioning compressor, alternator, etc. — because the rpm range and torque curve is so different between gasoline and diesel engines ?

I predict that when there is significant capacity to produce CTL as shown above, all gasoline engine vehicles will be built as FFV, and then it will be a seamless transition from mixes of methanol and gasoline to all methanol.

[glide625]

“I predict that when there is significant capacity to produce CTL as shown above, all gasoline engine vehicles will be built as FFV”

GM has bet the farm on that!