New one step process Can turn the vast amounts of Methane into resource products like Plastics, Agrochemicals and Pharmaceuticals. While Petroleum Oil can provide the same, Methane is easier, less energy intensive, to use, and produces less CO2.

Climate change game-changer? Method more efficiently converts methane into useful chemicals > News > USC Dornsife

USC Dornsife researchers find a catalyst that converts methane to olefin, a compound used in many materials, in a single step. USC Dornsife scientists have unlocked a new, more efficient pathway for converting methane - a potent gas contributing to climate change - directly into basic chemicals for manufacturing plastics, agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals.

 From article, (USC Dornsife scientists have unlocked a new, more efficient pathway for converting methane — a potent gas contributing to climate change — directly into basic chemicals for manufacturing plastics, agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals.

In research published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, chemists at the USC Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute say they have found a way to help to use this abundant and dangerous greenhouse gas, which is generally burnt or flared to produce energy.

Among common greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide is often cited as the largest culprit for trapping heat on Earth, which contributes to climate change. However, it is not the most potent.

That distinction belongs to methane. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, methane traps heat and warms the planet 86 times more than carbon dioxide over a 20-year horizon.

More fuel, fewer emissions, reduced energy use

Lead author Patrice T. D. Batamack, research scientist in chemistry, senior author and Professor of Chemistry G. K. Surya Prakash and Thomas Mathew, research scientist in chemistry, used a catalyst called H-SAPO-34, which was derived from a class of nanoporous crystals called zeolites.

This simple method of converting methane directly to ethylene and propylene, or olefin, would replace what are traditionally difficult, expensive and inefficient processes that add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. The majority of ethylene and propylene is produced from petroleum oil and shale liquid cracking, which consumes enormous amounts of energy.

When USC’s first Nobel Prize winner, George Olah, converted methane to olefin in 1985, the process required three steps. Since then, researchers have reduced it to two steps, but the Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute team is the first to realize the conversion with a single catalyst based on zeolites.

“Contact time is the key for this effective and simple catalyst to produce usable fuel from methane,” said Prakash, who holds the George A. and Judith A. Olah Nobel Laureate Chair in Hydrocarbon Chemistry. “In real estate, they say, ‘Location, location, location.’ In chemistry, it is all about condition, condition, condition.”)

For More Info