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Methane Conversion for Sustainable Energy Carrier Production to Diversify Qatar's Export Portfolio

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submitted on 2024-10-29, 05:21 and posted on 2024-10-31, 07:33 authored by Aliya Banu

This study investigates alternative pathways, dry reforming and cracking, for converting methane into various sustainable energy carriers to better utilise Qatar's natural gas resources. Due to zero greenhouse gas emissions, turquoise hydrogen production from methane cracking is more sustainable than steam methane reforming. Also, co-produced carbon black is valuable and can be marketed to other industries. As it is a high-temperature process, utilizing concentrated solar energy can further improve the sustainability of the process. Three integrated systems based on solar methane cracking are proposed. The conversion routes of turquoise hydrogen into a suitable form for transportation and storage are explored. The utilization of the carbon by-product is studied while ensuring the CO2 emissions are in the low range. The proposed systems are modelled on Aspen Plus® software to obtain the thermodynamic properties. Mass, energy, entropy, and exergy balances are carried out over the system's units. The energy and exergy efficiencies are calculated for the integrated systems. The solar methane cracking subsystem has an energy and exergy efficiency of 82.2% and 92.5%, respectively, including the carbon product as a useful commodity. It is found that the conversion of hydrogen to methanol and dimethyl ether (DME) has higher energy efficiency than hydrogen liquefaction. Furthermore, dry reforming of methane is another alternative process for converting methane to syngas having favourable characteristics compared to steam methane reforming. In this work, Ni-based catalysts are synthesized on halloysite clay support for dry reforming of methane. Various parameters are studied, and their effects on the catalyst performance are analyzed using different characterization techniques. It is found that the acid treatment of the clay can significantly enhance the support surface area and pore size. Ni/AHNT-H2SO4 yields the highest surface area of 176.13 m2/g and the lowest pore size. When compared with other conventional catalysts, it is found that the synthesized catalysts have properties that could lead to superior performance for dry reforming of methane.

History

Language

  • English

Publication Year

  • 2022

License statement

© The author. The author has granted HBKU and Qatar Foundation a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free license to reproduce, display and distribute the manuscript in whole or in part in any form to be posted in digital or print format and made available to the public at no charge. Unless otherwise specified in the copyright statement or the metadata, all rights are reserved by the copyright holder. For permission to reuse content, please contact the author.

Institution affiliated with

  • Hamad Bin Khalifa University
  • College of Science and Engineering - HBKU

Geographic coverage

Qatar

Degree Date

  • 2022

Degree Type

  • Master's

Advisors

Yusuf Bicer

Committee Members

Ahmad Abushaikha ; Muammar Koc

Department/Program

College of Science and Engineering

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    College of Science and Engineering - HBKU

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