Methyl chloride via oxyhydrochlorination of methane. Quarterly technical progress report No. 9, October 1993--December 1993

The purpose of this contract is to develop a process for converting light alkane gases to methyl chloride via oxyhydrochlorination using highly selective, stable catalysts in fixed-bed reactors designed to remove the large amount of heat generated, so as to control the reaction temperature. Further, the objective is to obtain the engineering data base necessary for developing a commercially feasible process and to evaluate the economics of the process. The key technical progress this quarter was the great deal of progress in equipment design, instrument selection and data sheet preparation for the PDU. This work is outlined under the Task 2.0 and 3.0 sections below. Catalyst definition this quarter provided limited progress due to the attempt to start up a new screening reactor than ran at higher pressures. The use of high pressure without the availability of a HCl removal unit operation resulted in many experimental problems. This will be solved by the use of the separation unit operation lab equipment as a catalyst screening reactor in the future. Work continued on the development of the separation system. Results showed that at a given pressure and L/G , as the amount of methyl chloride in the feed gas increases, the removal efficiency also increases. Variation of column parameters showed that the ``absorber`` acts not only as an absorber, but also as a direct contact condenser. This will provide significant benefit to the PDU