The catalytic oxidative coupling of methane: I. Comparison of experimental performance data from various types of reactor

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Abstract
The methane oxidative coupling performance of a fixed‐bed reactor was successfully translated to a bubbling fluidised‐bed reactor and this reaction mode was superior to spouted‐bed, inclined and mechanically‐agitated fluidised‐bed units. Also, a two‐stage bubbling fluidised‐bed reactor with inter‐stage addition of oxygen had the same performance as the single‐stage unit, for the same total oxygen input, over a wide range of operating conditions. Overall the bubbling fluidised‐bed is preferred, catalytic reactions dominate over non‐catalytic gas phase reactions in determining the reactor performance, the gas phase exhibited plug‐flow behaviour and the performance was independent of the gas phase oxygen partial pressure for a given oxygen input. The best hydrocarbon yield achieved in this study was 19.4%.