Syntroleum: Synthetic Fuel
General Information
Syntroleum is a form of Gas-to-Liquid technology. With all the current
changes in environment law and the new trends that are taking place in
the transportation industry it is imperative that cleaner fuels are used.
There are many different forms of GTL's in the energy industry, but Syntroleum
offers the best chance of both reducing capital cost and minimum economical
size of the GTL plant. Kenneth Agee incorporated Syntroleum in 1984. During
the 80's Kenneth had limited funds and had to work alone developing the
technology. Finally in 1989 and 1990 patents were issued to Syntroleum.
As a result they decide who to license their technology to, they have a
wide variety of companies using there technology today.
Benefits of GTL technology
In today's world we currently have an energy crisis. Mother Earth has
a limit supply of oil and other natural resources. The more diversewe make
our consumption the better we will preserve the Earth's resources. With
the added pressure that OPEC has put on the worlds economy by restricting
petroleum production and controlling the cost. The high cost of energy
has caused inflation in many economies creating a burden on most countries.
A large part of the earth's potential energy is content in natural gas,
which has very little economical value. Due to the fact that natural gas
is used for all GTL's, it would pose as a great alternative to traditional
fuel sources. This would make it more possible for the economically challenged
countries to buy energy cheaper, in turn helping the economy.
Natural gas offers the possibility of being able to product several
hundred billion of barrels of equivalent oil. With the great amounts of
population in some areas, environment laws are very strict. The synthetic
hydrocarbons in the GTL fuels will come in handy when trying to meet the
required standards. GTL fuel can be added to lower quality oil in order
to reduce the pollutants that are produced when burned.
Process of Producing Syntroleum:
From the Syntroleum process you can derive synthetic oil that then
can be processed into fuel and other hydrocarbon based products. There
are two catalytic reactions that need to take place for production.
The Conversion of Natural Gas into Synthetic Gas:
In the auto-thermal-reforming reactor the natural gas reacts will air,
that will produce a nitrogen-diluted synthetic gas. Mainly consisting
carbon monoxide and hydrogen.
The Conversion of Synthetic Gas into Synthetic
Crude:
This conversion is based on Fisher-Tropsch chemistry. Syntroleum
developed catalyst, which is in the synthesis gas that flows into the reactor
converting it into synthetic crude oil.
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For more information visit:
Syntroleum's Homepage
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