Selective methane oxidation over promoted oxide catalysts

Abstract

Principal accomplishments have been achieved in all three areas of selective catalytic oxidation of methane that have been pursued in this research project. These accomplishments are centered on the development of catalyst systems that produce high space time yields of C{sub 2} hydrocarbon products, formaldehyde, and methanol from methane/air mixtures at moderate temperatures and at ambient pressure. The accomplishments can be summarized as the following: the SO{sub 4}{sup 2{minus}}/SrO/La{sub 2}O{sub 3} catalyst developed here has been further optimized to produce 2 kg of C{sub 2} hydrocarbons/kg catalyst/hr at 550C; V{sub 2}O{sub 5}SiO{sub 2} catalysts have been prepared that produce up to 1.5 kg formaldehyde/kg catalyst/hr at 630C with CO{sub 2} selectivities; and a novel dual bed catalyst system has been designed and tested that produces over 100 g methanol/kg catalyst/hr at 600C.