Techno-Economic Assessment of Benzene Production from Shale Gas

The availability and low cost of shale gas has boosted its use as fuel and as a raw material to produce value-added compounds. Benzene is one of the chemicals that can be obtained from methane, and represents one of the most important compounds in the petrochemical industry. It can be synthesized via direct methane aromatization (DMA) or via indirect aromatization (using oxidative coupling of methane). DMA is a direct-conversion process, while indirect aromatization involves several stages. In this work, an economic, energy-saving, and environmental assessment for the production of benzene from shale gas using DMA as a reaction path is presented. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to observe the effect of the operating conditions on the profitability of the process. The results show that production of benzene using shale gas as feedstock can be accomplished with a high return on investment.