| Title | New Method Converts Methane in Natural Gas to Methanol at Room Temperature | |
| Date | Wednesday February 24 2021, @11:39PM | |
| Author | requerdanos | |
| Topic | ||
| from the good-news-for-cows dept. | ||
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)
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printed from SoylentNews, New Method Converts Methane in Natural Gas to Methanol at Room Temperature on 2024-04-25 11:58:56