Switzerland makes progress in developing a new process for the direct conversion of methane into methanol

Thread Content

Switzerland makes progress in developing a new process for directly converting methane into methanol. Author/Source: Date: 2017-07-28. Clicks: 15. Methane is the main component of natural gas, and it can be converted into methanol, which serves as a fuel and a basic chemical raw material. Compared to gaseous methane, liquid methanol is easier to transport and safer to handle, offering great prospects for the comprehensive utilization of natural gas. Although industrial processes for converting methane into methanol already exist, these reactions require high temperature and pressure, and involve two chemical steps. As a result, the production equipment is large and complex, the production costs are high, and harmful or useless by-products such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and formaldehyde are generated during the process. The Institute of Catalysis and Sustainable Chemistry at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland has developed a new process for directly converting methane into methanol. Through a single chemical reaction, methane reacts with water to produce methanol; the reaction is mild, no additional oxidants such as oxygen or hydrogen peroxide are required, the selectivity is high, and there are few by-products (only hydrogen is produced aside from methanol). The key to this new technology is a novel catalyst, which is a porous zeolite-like material with copper atoms embedded in its pores. During the reaction, methane molecules are broken down into carbon and hydrogen atoms on its surface; these atoms are then oxidized by oxygen atoms produced from the decomposition of water, resulting in the formation of methane and hydrogen gas. Researchers used far-infrared spectroscopy and the institute’s large-scale research facility, the Swiss Synchrotron Light Source (SLS), to study the reaction process in order to uncover its mechanism, while also conducting theoretical simulation calculations at the Swiss Supercomputing Center. This research finding will be published in Science. Researchers believe that this new process can be used to develop compact methane-to-methanol conversion units, which are suitable for converting the natural gas generated during oil field extraction on-site. This approach reduces the significant waste that occurs when such gas has to be burned on-site due to safety and transportation concerns, thereby turning waste into a valuable resource and enabling comprehensive utilization of those resources.