Ethanol production

Ethanol production
The reaction of coal and natural gas was used by a German manufacturer for Buna rubber: Chemische Werke Huls, at Marl, Germany, and AVCO Corp in the US. Consequently several references had described both Huls Arc Process and AVCO rotating arc reactor.[18][19] Both reactors are of cylindrical shape and have a rotating electric arc. The cathode is at the cylinder axis, while the anode is on the circumference. As methane gas provided the highest yield, then it is forced with coal powder into a vortex passing through the electric arc for few milliseconds.
Huls Arc Process[20] produced a mixture of acetylene and ethylene gases. The reaction conditions can be varied to determine the needed product. Increasing the Specific Energy Requirement (SER) favor acetylene production, and lower SER is for ethylene:
Enthalpy Change for Ethylene:[21] = 127.34 kJ/mol, while for acetylene: = 301.4 kJ/mol. As a consequence, recent production processes are using conventional heating instead of electric arc.
Hydration of ethylene gas producing ethanol is the most important process for ethanol production. Vapor phase process is the preferred one[22] in which ethylene and steam pass over a catalyst. One of the most accepted catalyst is diatomite impregnated with phosphoric acid.