Combustible gas 'may be reused' through liquefaction

Liquefied forms of combustible gas may allow the fuel to be reused, rather than flared off during oil refinement.

Dr Jan Lerou, chief technology officer for the Oxford Catalysts Group, tells the Novel Gas Conversion Symposium of the possibilities for the retrieval of combustible gas at small scales.

"Conventional gas-to-liquid (GTL) technologies are not economically viable at small scales of less than 10,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd)," he says.

"However, only about six per cent of the world's gas fields are large enough to sustain a GTL plant of that size."

By lowering the limit of profitability to 2,000 bpd, up to two-fifths of the world's gas fields could become viable.

This could help to reduce some of the negative outcomes of flaring off excess combustible gas, such as increased carbon dioxide emissions.

Co-founder of Oxford Catalysts Professor Malcolm Green pioneered the process of catalytic partial oxidation of methane, or CPOx, for liquid fuel production.

His colleage, chief scientific officer Tiancun Xiao, later claimed the Carbon Trust Innovation Award for his own work on CPOx to biogas conversion.