Production of Methanol from Methane gas via Partial Oxidation using an Innovative Charged-microdroplet Approach

Methane (CH4) is the most abundant hydrocarbon in natural gas reserves. It has been estimated that twice the volume of other gas reserves. CH4 is used as an energy carrier. An...nd is a known greenhouse gas with a higher global warming potential than carbon dioxide (CO2). Producing chemicals from methane is one of the key strategies of Saudi Aramco. In industry, a Fischer-Tropsch process with high pressure-temperature via syngas intermediate has liquid products, including methanol from CH4 gas. Direct conversion of CH4 to methanol at room temperature/pressure is challenging and saves resources and energy. Several research groups, including Stanford University (Richard Zare's) group, are working on this vital issue. Several oxidants, such as hydrogen peroxide, nitrous oxide, and oxygen, were used to convert CH4 directly to methanol; all these works resulted in a low yield of methanol. Prof. Richard Zare's group recently discovered that water droplets could generate hydroxy radicals without catalysts. In this proposal, for the first time, we plan to combine charged droplets with CH4 for direct conversion of methanol at room temperature. Combining droplet electrochemistry with partial oxidation of CH4 is a promising approach suitable for scaling up the process engineering applications