30 October 2006
Ionic liquids could be the key to a commercial process for converting natural gas to methanol.
Using remote reserves of natural gas, whose main component is methane, is currently a challenge. By converting the gas to a liquid, such as methanol, it becomes much easier to store and transport.
Platinum based catalysts are known to be effective for direct methane to methanol conversion. Now, Yongchun Tang and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology's Power, Environmental and Energy Research Center in Covina, California, US, have come up with an improvement on previous catalytic methods. The researchers used platinum salts, such as platinum chloride, dissolved in ionic liquids and concentrated sulfuric acid to selectively convert methane to methanol.
Tang's system is relatively high yielding, and the catalyst is not inhibited by the water produced during the reaction - a problem for previous methods like the Catalytica system, developed by catalyst company Catalytica Advanced Technologies, California, US.
'We hope that this work will lead to a cost effective and field-deployable commercial process converting gas to liquid in the near future,' said Tang. 'But first we must improve the performance of the current systems.'
Roy Periana, at the University of Southern California, US, is one of the inventors of the Catalytica system. 'I am always very intrigued by possible improvements to that system. If ionic liquids could be used to minimize water inhibition as well as increase catalyst rates, this could be a substantial improvement that could eventually push us closer to developing commercial catalysts,' he said.
References
Z Li, J Cheng, M Haught and Y Tang, Chem. Commun., 2006"
and
"Key Step Made Towards Turning Methane Gas Into Liquid Fuel
ScienceDaily (Oct. 23, 2009) — Researchers at the University of Washington and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have taken an important step in converting methane gas to a liquid, potentially making it more useful as a fuel and as a source for making other chemicals.
Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is plentiful and is an attractive fuel and raw material for chemicals because it is more efficient than oil, produces less pollution and could serve as a practical substitute for petroleum-based fuels until renewable fuels are widely useable and available.
However, methane is difficult and costly to transport because it remains a gas at temperatures and pressures typical on the Earth's surface.
Now UNC and UW scientists have moved closer to devising a way to convert methane to methanol or other liquids that can easily be transported, especially from the remote sites where methane is often found. The finding is published in the Oct. 23 issue of the journal Science."
The above article on the work at UW and UNC is full of caveats and cautions. But, it confirms other research we've documented that methane can be converted into methanol, and it can be done efficiently, though the researchers at these two institutions seem afraid, for some reason, to say so. Their schools receive generous grants from Big Oil, would be our guess.
But we will remind you of a rare Big Oil positive achievement: Exxon-Mobil, using a zeolite catalyst, have developed a commercial technology, "The MTG Process", wherein methanol is converted into gasoline.
So:
WVU, with the United States Bureau of Mines, more than 30 years ago, said we can convert coal into methane; but, they whispered it very, very quietly behind what was still, at that time, the Iron Curtain.
The University of Washington, USC, et. al., say we can convert methane to methanol. Exxon-Mobil says we can convert methanol to gasoline.