New method converts methane in natural gas to methanol at room temperature:
"Researchers have been interested in ways to convert methane to methanol at ambient temperatures to sidestep all the heat and pressure that is currently required in industrial processes to perform this conversion," said Meenesh Singh, assistant professor of chemical engineering at the [University of Illinois Chicago (UIC)] College of Engineering and corresponding author of the paper.
[...] "Besides being a cleaner-burning fuel, methane can also be stored safely in regular containers, unlike natural gas, which has to be stored under pressure and which is much more expensive," Singh said.
High amounts of heat and pressure are required to break the hydrocarbon bonds in methane gas, the first step in producing methanol. But Singh and UIC graduate student Aditya Prajapati have identified a catalyst material that helps bring down the energy needed to break these bonds so that the reaction can take place at room temperature.
[...] Their catalyst is composed of titanium and copper. The catalyst, together with a small amount of electricity, facilitates the breaking of the hydrocarbon bonds of methane and the formation of methanol. The process uses much less energy than traditional methods, and because it doesn't require machinery to produce high pressure and heat, it can be set up quickly and inexpensively.
Journal Reference:
Aditya Prajapati, Brianna A. Collins, Jason D. Goodpaster, et al. Fundamental insight into electrochemical oxidation of methane towards methanol on transition metal oxides [$], Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2023233118)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @12:34AM (29 children)
Methanol is a very ugly poison, it's part of what is blended in low concentration to turn ethanol into "denatured alcohol". Good for killing germs and cheaper than booze...due to no sin tax.
It is a high octane fuel (burns slowly, low tendency to detonate or ping), used to be commonly used in racing cars with high compression ratio. May still be used in certain classes of racing as part of a fuel blend.
Like ethanol, the fuel air ratio required is richer (more fuel), you get a lot less miles/gallon of methanol than of gasoline.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @01:10AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_methanol_poisoning_incidents [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Thursday February 25 2021, @01:26AM (21 children)
you're mixing your use cases, and hence presenting false information.
Ethyl alcohol is indeed denatured with methanol in industrial settings only. But you're talking about it being poison. Ethyl alcohol is Not denatured with methanol in the consumer setting - what you can buy at the store. It is denatured with acetone. To learn this, all you have to do is look at the ingredients label of what you buy at the store.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @01:31AM (20 children)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/denatured-alcohol [sciencedirect.com]
Who's the idiot now. Idiot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @04:22AM
I’d say the biggest idiots are the alkies drinking Sterno filtered through an old sock. People will drink anything. Listerine was popular back when the label had it containing 26% alcohol - 52 proof cheap booze that leaves you with fresh breath! (Circa 1974)
(Score: 0, Troll) by fakefuck39 on Thursday February 25 2021, @04:37AM (17 children)
the one who can't read due to not passing middle school english class would be the biggest idiot. as i literally wrote, industrial ethanol is denatured with methanol. thank you for providing a link supporting my statement. i am glad you agree with me. drinking poison -your concern -is a concern for consumer denatured ethanol. which is denatured with acetone, not methanol. i don't need a link to prove that. i can look at the ingredients list on my pharmacy bought bottle of ethanol.
to answer your question about who is an idiot -it has always been you, likely all your life, a'd every time you open your mouth -not just in this discussion -you advertise that loud and clear.
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Thursday February 25 2021, @05:19AM (16 children)
Not true everywhere, thus not true in general.
The cheapest is to use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatonium [wikipedia.org] - the necessary amount is infinitesimal, like 0.001% (or whatever 10ppm mean in percentage)
Besides, acetone is a bad denaturant for ethanol. Acetone and ethanol do not form an azeotropic mixture [ddbst.com], thus would be very simple to separate by fractional distillation, with acetone coming first at 56C and ethanol mainly remaining behind up to 78C. The boiling temps are so much different you can do it in a pot with minimal temperature control: lose the acetone at 65C, hold the ethanol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Thursday February 25 2021, @06:13AM (15 children)
me: sky is blue
you: nuh-huh, it sometimes rains so the sky is not blue in general
yes sherlock, that's what in general means. as in every bottle of denatured ethanol on sale at tje pharmacy or grocery store is denatured with acetone, and despite you being able to find some that aren't by special order, in general it's true.
i'm not sure what point it is you're trying to make with fractional distillation. yes, different things evaporate at different temps. glad you learned that.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday February 25 2021, @06:56AM (6 children)
You won't able to find ethanol denaturated with acetone in any retail outlet in the entire Australia, ye idiot.
Europe does not use acetone either [wikipedia.org]
So, fuck off, you're bullshiting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Thursday February 25 2021, @07:53AM (5 children)
wtf does australia have to do with anything lol. and we're not in europe either. we're in america, and we denature with acetone. did you knw zimbabwe denatures with turtle shit
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Thursday February 25 2021, @10:28AM (4 children)
You may be in America, but that doesn't mean everyone else here on the site is.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @06:23PM
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Thursday February 25 2021, @10:24PM (2 children)
I'm in america, the guy I literally replied to is clearly american, so as far as my reply, who cares where everyone else on the site is?
me and the OP: Kroger has cheaper groceries than Whole Foods.
colon: nuh-hun, in australia Kengaroo-Food is cheapest
me: this conversation is about american stores
you: well, you may be in america, but not every country has a Kroger or a Whole Foods.
you're brilliant. just brilliant. thanks for providing me with entertainment.
(Score: 2) by Eratosthenes on Sunday February 28 2021, @10:15AM (1 child)
I care. Evidently you do not. Here is to our Greek Soylentils, our Turkish Soylentils, our Hindu Soylentils, Kashmiri Soylentils, our Bangledeshi Soylentils, and our Burmese (Myanmarian) Soylentils protesting for democracy and freedom!! And our Soylentils in Hong Kong, our Uighur Soylentils, and our poor oppressed Republican Soylentils! Our British Soylentils living in France! Our British Soylentils living in Estonia! And our British, wait, why are there all these British Soylentils! This is supposed to be an American Site, where we speak American!!!
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Sunday February 28 2021, @06:50PM
I know you kid, but I actually qualify as many of these, so my opinion matters more on this. Not only am I originally from Moscow, the European part of Russia, I've lived in 5 countries, and been to about 50, in addition to I think 49 states.
Greek Soylentils (spent several months there, have friends there, can read Greek)
our Turkish Soylentils (spent about a month total there over several trips)
Our Soylentils in Hong Kong (been there, have friends from there)
poor oppressed Republican Soylentils (yes, let's count the nazi opinions. Republican is not what it once was, and what you call Republican now just means Not Democrat, and they have nowhere else to go that's Not Democrat, so call themselves Republican/Conservative)
British Soylentils (Spent several months there, have friends there)
living in France (lived there for 4 years)
living in Estonia (spent about a month there)
So on behalf of all those I qualify as in your list, and representing that group, I say when the conversation is specifically about America, and an idiot who can't read barges in with information about another country, which does not in any way apply to the conversation, that guy is a clown.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday February 25 2021, @07:24AM (7 children)
If the ethanol is denaturated with acetone, any hillbilly would be able to follow the instructions:
1. buy a crockpot and a thermometer
2. get outside, fill the pot with the alcohol denaturated with acetone and start it
3. stir it all the time while heating. When the temperature reaches 65-70C, all the acetone is gone and you're left with alcohol that you can drink for cheaps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by fakefuck39 on Thursday February 25 2021, @07:56AM (6 children)
that's great. and the hillbilly would pay double for that ethanol vs just buying a gallon of five dollar wolfshmidt vodka why? oh look, you used hillbilly. as in, america. where store bought ethanol is denatured with acetone.
no one cares it's easy to denature. it's even easier and much cheaper to just buy vodka, you dunce.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday February 25 2021, @08:31AM (5 children)
Uh-hu, taxed alcohol is cheaper than not taxed one. I find it hard to believe.
Denatured alcohol $16/gallon. [ebay.com]
You say it's denatured with acetone?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Thursday February 25 2021, @09:45AM (4 children)
no, i'm not saying some weird posting you're able to find on ebay is denatured with acetone retard. I'm saying that if you go into any pharmacy or grocery store in america and buy ethyl alcohol, it is literally all denatured with acetone. I'm also saying that a 1.5L handle of wolfshmidt vodka in a plastic handle is $7.
now what you're saying, is someone is going to spend more money on the medicinal grade ethyl alcohol, do fractional distillation on it, and get some even shittier tasting alcohol than the cheapest store vodka, just sou they could spend a few bucks more doing it. and this to you, means in your weird autism-reality, the product labels on alcohol bought in all american stores are wrong. What I say is you have an incurable brain disease, it's called autism, and it's untreatable and very entertaining for me to watch.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday February 25 2021, @12:29PM (3 children)
No, mate, I don't say such a thing. You keep moving the goal posts.
First you claim the all the alcohol available to the consumer is denatured with acetone.
When I point that other countries don't, you backtrack to "oh, but it was only about US".
When I'm showing an example of "denature alcohol available to US consumer on ebay", you backtrack "oh, but is all about medicinal grade denatured alcohol available in US for domestic consumers. It is only that one which is denatured with acetone".
Funny thing, I say the same about you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday February 25 2021, @04:25PM (1 child)
>> What I say is you have an incurable brain disease, it's called autism, and it's untreatable and very entertaining for me to watch.
> Funny thing, I say the same about you.
Guys, you can both be right okay!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday February 26 2021, @02:24AM
Funny thing, you too may be right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Thursday February 25 2021, @07:24PM
i'm replying to an american who says consumer alcohol has methanol added, saying he's full of crap. then you barge in with your autism and your ebay and your australia. ok buddy, i'm backtrackng, sure. enjoy your disease.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Thursday February 25 2021, @05:05AM
Only in places where "cheaper is better, fuck public health". All the others will use the " bad tasting additives".
What you buy in Australia as methylated spirits is 95% alcohol, water very close to 5%, other esters and whatnot impurities <1% (it's technical grade, impurities are to be expected) and denatonium benzoate as the "denaturating agent" (0.1%).
Anecdote:
I used to have a link on a big Aussie forum (whirlpool.net.au) with someone who made it drinkable by:
1. using hydrochloric acid to react the impurities and drift their boiling point away from the ethanol one
2. distillation at carefully controlled temperature. He said that after this step he wasn't able to fill the sweetish smell of some esters he was able to detect before
3. drying over molecular sieve
He didn't have a molecular spectrometer at the time, but lived long enough to be banned from the forum for the sharing of his experience.
Ah, here it is [whirlpool.net.au]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Informative) by sjames on Thursday February 25 2021, @01:36AM (4 children)
But a lot easier to store and transport than compressed natural gas. You could run it in a car, but you'd have to replace a few parts in the fuel system with methanol resistant parts first. Similar refit should make it run OK mixed with diesel.
It is toxic, but then I wouldn't suggest drinking gasoline or inhaling methane either.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @02:42AM
Methanol is several times more toxic. You are quite unlikely to drink whole 350 ml of gasoline needed to off yourself, but getting the measly 10 ml of methanol you need to go blind is a whole lot easier. Long enough contact with it or breathing its fumes, et voila!
" Methanol vapor is harmful when breathed in, and methanol poisoning presents a risk of death, severe ocular toxicity, and other severe effects if ingested. As of May 9, 2018, methanol was banned from use in windscreen washing and defrosting products in the European Union.[4]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windshield_washer_fluid [wikipedia.org]
COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) 2018/589 of 18 April 2018:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32018R0589&from=EN [europa.eu]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by nostyle on Thursday February 25 2021, @05:08AM (1 child)
Yes, methanol is...
which is the important part. It is also a lot easier to store and transport than hydrogen.
One major problem with a "hydrogen" economy is the storage and distribution of hydrogen. Say you use off-shore wind or desert solar to produce hydrogen from water. All well and good that you are carbon-neutral, (and I ignore energy efficiency for the moment), but you face enormous infrastructure investments to get the hydrogen to where it is useful.
Now one way to tackle the issue is to borrow a carbon from the atmosphere and convert the hydrogen into methane, but then you are still having to fart around with compressed gases. OTOH, if the method discovered and discussed here gives you an easy way to transform your methane into liquid methanol, your storage and transport become trivial problems, and all you need to do is make sure that hysterical anonymous cowards don't accidentally poison themselves by improperly handling it.
---
Now the first thing to learn about a deck of cards is how to handle 'em. They're a whole lot like women, usually when you pick one up, you wish you hadn't!
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday February 25 2021, @09:44PM
Yes, hydrogen is such a problem to store and transport that I would suggest converting it to methane instead. It can diffuse right through solid metals and make them brittle in the process.
Of course if you're going to convert it to methane, you might as well take the next step and convert to methanol.
Methane (as natural gas) works well for homes and some industrial applications. It also works well for things like city buses. Passenger vehicles would probably be better off with methanol.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday February 25 2021, @05:27PM
The BTEX in normal gas (or petrol, since I'm using an aussie link) isn't exactly great for you! [qld.gov.au]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @02:44AM
Yes, methanol is a poison if drunk.
So is gasoline.
If gas is useful for making stuff go, why wouldn't methanol be also?
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Thursday February 25 2021, @01:42AM
by spreading marketing speak.
Yes, to make methanol you need like 100atm of pressure and 300C heat. To make it from carbon monoxide (or dioxide, don't remember), hydrogen that is. To make it from methane, we're just over 100C, and at about 20atm.
Now the question is, what's better - the articles claimed "high heat" - water's boiling point, or running electricity through a big container of explosive gas.
Yes, this may use less energy. Blowing up a hydrogen bomb and somehow harvesting its energy uses less energy than our current methods of electrical production too.
Now, I may be wrong here, because my college chem classes are almost 30 years in the past. But I think it's bs. What I have read recently, is some promising research into using zeolite to split hydrogen from water and using that to avoid over oxygenation (which produces carbon dioxide).
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @02:06AM (4 children)
all the time:
Newsflash for the journalist who wrote that sentence, and the editors who edited it, but.... methane is the burnable gas component of "natural gas". The journalist meant "methanol" which is an alcohol that is liquid at room temperature instead of "methane".
This is an excellent example of how Gell-Mann amnesia [epsilontheory.com] occurs. Always remember, if it is written by a journalist, there is probably one or more factual errors in the story.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @04:28AM
That’s because they’re so busy writing stuff they don’t have time to do any research. Hence rewriting press releases as news copy:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @10:43AM
This is what is called a typo. There, I fixed it for you. This is what the entire thing is suppose to be about anyway? Right? So not sure why you are making a typo into a mountain.
(Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Thursday February 25 2021, @01:31PM
I came here to say the same thing. Good catch!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday February 25 2021, @05:29PM
Correct, Natural Gas is something like 95% methane although that other 5% does exist (ethane, propane, etc).
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday February 25 2021, @04:58PM
The article misses the point that methanol is a pretty common super useful building block.
So the long term effect is not likely to be "starting with natgas, its now cheaper to make a shitty liquid fuel and burn it" but there's a HUGE list of fun products to make with methanol that'll likely be a little cheaper now.
Formaldehyde is fun precursor for plastics and glues. There's all kinds of methanol-to-hydrocarbon processes to make everything from synthetic lube to synthetic gasoline. Some biodiesel applications. You can make acetic acid from methanol. Also some rocket fuels.
The article says we'll use it as a shitty fuel but the most likely outcome is slightly cheaper plywood (via methanol to formaldehyde to that weird-ass glue only used by plywoof mfgrs)