부산대학교 도서관

Ethanol is a versatile chemical that is used as a chemical solvent, sterilizer, antifreeze, chemical intermediate, but mostly an oxygenate in fuels. Due to its projected use as an oxygenate in gasoline, ethanol demand is projected to grow by as much as 10% per year. If synthetic ethanol could instead be made directly by oxidizing the cheaper light alkanes that are found in abundance in the petroleum industry, these low value fuel gases could be converted into a high value alcohol. Conversion of low value ethane to high value ethanol would be an advantage for both the fuels and chemical industries. TDA Research, Inc. (TDA) has identified a process that directly oxidizes light alkanes instead of olefins. TDA has successfully demonstrated that it can convert light alkanes such as ethane directly to ethanol. The process, however, suffers from over-oxidation of ethanol, resulting in large amounts of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, thus making the process unsuitable for industrial application. The selectivity to ethanol must still be significantly increased and the effects of over-oxidation reduced before our ethane oxidation system can be considered for an industrial process.