Catalytic Upgrading of Methane to Higher Hydrocarbon in a Nonoxidative Chemical Conversion

Abstract

Discovery of large shale gas reserves in recent years resulted in the reduction of natural gas price. In order to convert methane in a direct and energy efficient route, nonoxidative catalytic conversion is a potentially attractive option which includes an activation of methane molecules at low temperature. The oxide of transition metals such as Mo, Fe, V, W, Cr, Zn, and Cu have been studied as catalysts for methane conversion, where usually the conversion is lower than 20% and the operating temperature needed is above 800 °C which causes coking, thus resulting in an early catalyst deactivation. In this work, a noble transition metal, ruthenium, has been chosen as the catalyst with the objective to decrease the methane activation temperature, increase the stability, and also achieve higher conversion than other transition metal catalysts. The catalyst was prepared as 1.5 or 3.0 wt % ruthenium loading on zeolite (i.e., ZSM-5) and silica supports separately to compare the effect of metal loading and metal–s...