Systems and methods for manufacture of dimethyl ether (DME) from natural gas and flare gas feedstock

US9856197B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• Pioneer Energy · US

Inventors

• Robert M. Zubrin · Indian Hills, US
• Boris Nizamov · Highlands Ranch, US
• Thomas Lee Henshaw · Monument, US
• Adam M Kortan · Arvada, US
• James Siebarth · Lakewood, US
• Colin Apke · Castle Rock, US
• Mark Berggren · Golden, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Mar 1, 2017
• Grant date: Jan 2, 2018
• Expiry date: Mar 1, 2037

Classification

• Technology area (CPC Y): Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
• CPC primary: Y02P20/129
• WIPO field: Organic fine chemistry
• WIPO sector: Chemistry

Abstract

Disclosed is a method that reforms flare gas or other raw natural gas source, using air without steam, to directly produce dimethyl ether (DME), a direct diesel substitute. The method first reforms an air-natural gas mixture at ambient atmospheric pressures, and then compresses the resulting CO-hydrogen-nitrogen gas mixture to 100-2,000 psi, and feeds it through a combined reactor which reacts the gas mixture directly into DME. The nitrogen is returned to the atmosphere. DME is an excellent diesel fuel, and can be used to displace significantly costlier and dirtier petroleum-based diesel fuel, while solving a critical problem with flaring or other wasted natural gas. For example, the roughly 120 billion cubic feet per year that was flared in North Dakota in 2014 could be converted into over 3 million tons of DME using the disclosed method.