Methane is a relatively inexpensive energy resource. The mature hydraulic fracturing technology brings this earth-abundant energy sources from shale to our society in a safe, reliable environmental-friend manner. One of the main applications of methane is the production of methanol and other important raw materials of chemical industries. Currently, chemical industries take a two-step process: steam reforming to generate synthetic gas (CO and H2) and a following synthesis of methanol from CO and H2. The current industrial processes of transforming methane to methanol faces challenge in durability of catalysts and high energy input. An alternative solution for chemical transformations of methane is a direct conversion of CH4 to CH3OH or other chemicals at a mild condition in terms of a relatively low temperature. In this talk I will brief the work of different groups reported in literatures and then introduce the two chemical processes developed in our group to utilize methane for production of methanol, formic acid, and acetic acid. One is the catalysis on singly dispersed Pd1O4 species anchored on internal wall of ZSM5. It exhibits high catalytic activity and selectivity in transforming CH4 to CH3OH in a liquid phase while H2O2 is used as an oxidant. The activity for production of organic oxygenates on 0.01wt%Pd/ZSM5 at 95oC is about more than one molecule per Pd atom per second. CuO largely promotes selectivity for production of methanol from CH4. At this temperature the selectivity for production of methanol on 0.01wt%Pd/ZSM5 was promoted to 98% by using CuO though the overall activity for organic oxygenates is decreased to a quarter of that without using CuO. Another process is the transformation of methane with CO and O2 on singly dispersed Rh1O5 species anchored on the internal wall ZSM5 to acetic acid in an aqueous phase. It exhibits activity comparable to homogenous catalysts reported in literatures.

Catalytic conversion of methane to methanol and acetic acid on singly dispersed oxide species on internal surface of ZSM5

249th National Meeting (2015)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.