Faculty Mentor
Cheng Zhang
Major/Area of Research
Physics
Description
Methane, main component of natural gas, is an abundant, inexpensive, and easily accessible resource due to the recent discoveries of natural gas reservoir in US. The purpose of this work is to convert methane to value-added product such as methanol. Methanol can be directly used as a liquid fuel and as a raw material for other industrial process. In this work, a series of novel iron-based catalysts supported on silicon carbide and zirconium oxide were designed and synthesized via a wetness incipient impregnation method. The synthesized catalysts were tested for CH4 oxidation with O2 through a flow bed reactor with controlled CH4 and O2 flow rate and on-line gas chromatography (GC) analysis to determine the catalyst performance. Results showed the formation of methanol, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons under mild conditions (<250°C, atmospheric pressure). Results for pulse CO chemisorption illustrated the number of active sites and temperature- programmed reduction (TPR) displayed the reducibility of active metals and the alloy formation of the bi- and tri-metallic catalysts. Other catalyst characterization such as x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), x-ray diffraction (XRD) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) are to be carried out at Brookhaven National Laboratory with an aim to establish relationships between the activity and properties. This work indicated that the iron-based catalyst we designed enabled the methane conversion to value-added product such as methanol. We believe this study will contribute significantly to the utilization of the abundant and inexpensive methane.
Included in
Development of Iron Based Heterogeneous Catalysts for Methane Conversion
Methane, main component of natural gas, is an abundant, inexpensive, and easily accessible resource due to the recent discoveries of natural gas reservoir in US. The purpose of this work is to convert methane to value-added product such as methanol. Methanol can be directly used as a liquid fuel and as a raw material for other industrial process. In this work, a series of novel iron-based catalysts supported on silicon carbide and zirconium oxide were designed and synthesized via a wetness incipient impregnation method. The synthesized catalysts were tested for CH4 oxidation with O2 through a flow bed reactor with controlled CH4 and O2 flow rate and on-line gas chromatography (GC) analysis to determine the catalyst performance. Results showed the formation of methanol, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons under mild conditions (<250°C, atmospheric pressure). Results for pulse CO chemisorption illustrated the number of active sites and temperature- programmed reduction (TPR) displayed the reducibility of active metals and the alloy formation of the bi- and tri-metallic catalysts. Other catalyst characterization such as x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), x-ray diffraction (XRD) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) are to be carried out at Brookhaven National Laboratory with an aim to establish relationships between the activity and properties. This work indicated that the iron-based catalyst we designed enabled the methane conversion to value-added product such as methanol. We believe this study will contribute significantly to the utilization of the abundant and inexpensive methane.