Abstract for CRADA between the National Energy Technology Laboratory and West Virginia University Research Corporation (AGMT-0819)

The U.S. Department of Energy is investigating microwave-assisted technologies for chemical conversion processes. Primarily the benefits come from the rapid and selective heating associated with MW power, which can overcome significant lag times in heating the medium over conventional, thermal heating. Beyond selective heating, a non-thermal MW effect has been proposed as a possible explanation for enhanced conversion and selectivity in reaction processes, which can produce yield beyond equilibrium values. For this project, the goal is to develop and demonstrate microwave-assisted catalytic conversion of natural gas into valueadded chemicals via direct non-oxidative natural gas conversion. NETL will collaborate with WVU to carry out microwave reactor design and test in fixed frequency (2.45 GHz) and variable frequency reactors (500W) at NETL on natural gas conversion, including microwave reactor modeling, measurement, catalyst regeneration and energy efficiency prediction.