Siluria Technologies (San Francisco, Calif.; www.siluria.com) and The Linde Group (Munich, Germany; www.linde.com) have announced that they have entered into a collaboration agreement. The primary objective of the agreement is to combine the respective company’s technologies and expertise into an optimized and integrated package, which Linde would license to the petrochemicals industry for both revamps or expansions at existing ethylene plants and for new world scale ethylene plants.
Over the past six months, Linde has completed an extensive technical and economic diligence process on Siluria’s oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) technology, which catalytically converts methane directly to ethylene. The success of this joint diligence effort resulted in the formation of this strategic relationship. The companies have formed joint teams, which will fully integrate the company’s respective technologies and collaborate through the final scale-up and demonstration of the OCM technology at the previously announced demonstration plant that Siluria is constructing at Braskem’s site in La Porte, Tex.
The companies expect to be offering the technologies to the broader ethylene industry in the second half of 2015. Siluria is currently engaged in feasibility studies with selected operating companies in the ethylene industry focused on the initial commercial deployments.