Recently, the Bioenergy Technology Office (BETO) under the U.S. Department of Energy DOE released the results of the 2023 review of the microchannel reactor for ethanol to n-butene conversion project. Microchannel reactors have irreplaceable advantages in a variety of application scenarios. Let’s take a look at the review results of the US Department of Energy DOE’s review of microchannel reactors for converting ethanol into n-butene.

1. Project Goal:

• Develop new catalytic pathway for direct ethanol to n-butene rich olefins, providing control over jet and diesel blendstocks and co-products, to enable distillate MFSP of $3.00/GGE and >70% GHG emission reduction.

• Scale up using advanced process intensified and modular microchannel reactor technology.

2. Approach:

• Collaborative approach across academia, national laboratory, and leading bioenergy company targeting key challenges around new processing chemistry and scale-up.

• Setting state-of-the-art ethanol conversion for process intensification & high C efficiency

• Co-products can reduce costs, diversity product offerings

3. Progress and Outcomes:

• Ethanol to butene catalyst formulation verified suitable for scale up.

• Engineered catalyst developed that will enable scale up using microchannel reactor architecture.

• New engineered substrate developed that will be feasible in advanced reactor system not employing separate catalyst inserts.

• Proof of concept established for 3-D printed substrate with multi-metal components and demonstrated suitable conversion with addition of catalyst.

• Kinetics and reactor modeling led to design of scaled reactor system that is projected to hit demonstration scale capacity target.

4. Impact:

• Cost advantage potential to current state of technology ATJ processing

• Developing new fabrication methods that will reduce capital costs for modular processing systems

• Modularity enables quicker time to market, reduced upfront risk

• Tech transfer with industry