Millisecond Oxidation of Alkanes

This project was undertaken in response to the Department of Energy's call to research and develop technologies 'that will reduce energy consumption, enhance economic competitiveness, and reduce environmental impacts of the domestic chemical industry.' The current technology at the time for producing 140 billion pounds per year of propylene from naphtha and Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) relied on energy- and capital-intensive steam crackers and Fluidized Catalytic Cracking (FCC) units. The propylene is isolated from the product stream in a costly separation step and subsequently converted to acrylic acid and other derivatives in separate production facilities. This project proposed a Short Contact Time Reactor (SCTR)-based catalytic oxydehydrogenation process that could convert propane to propylene and acrylic acid in a cost-effective and energy-efficient fashion. Full implementation of this technology could lead to sizeable energy, economic and environmental benefits for the U. S. chemical industry by providing up to 45 trillion BTUs/year, cost savings of $1.8 billion/year and a combined 35 million pounds/year reduction in environmental pollutants such as COx, NOx, and SOx. Midway through the project term, the program directive changed, which approval from the DOE and its review panel, from direct propane oxidation to acrylic acid at millisecond contact times to a two-step process for making acrylic acid from propane. The first step was the primary focus, namely the conversion of propane to propylene in high yields assisted by the presence of CO2. The product stream from step one was then to be fed directly into a commercially practiced propylene-to-acrylic acid tandem reactor system