Autocatalytic Photo-Oxidation Process of C₃-C₄Fraction to Methanol

Abstract

The direct conversion of propane and butane fraction (existing as mixtures rather than separate products) to methanol as well as the reaction mechanism under visible light source (λ=420 nm) and the catalytic action of •NO2 have been evaluated. The purpose of this work is to explore novel pathways for the production of methanol by suggesting a simplified model and result-oriented scheme to avoid the drawbacks associated with methane activation (incredibly high activation energy of about 440 kJ/mol even under mild processing conditions) in the course of its transformation to methanol which is characterized by high yield and selectivity. It is important to consider propane and butane fraction (recovered from primary crude oil distillation and by cracking of heavy molecules) as a possible feedstock for methanol production exhibiting a sufficiently high degree of conversion per pass. Thereby, a relatively simple and economical method for methanol production from refined crude oil composed of propane and butane (a one step co-processing) have been tendered.

Synthesis of Methanol from Methane in Cavitation Field

“…Therefore, it is desirable to convert methane into liquid transportable fuels such as methanol, as it retains most of methane energy, contributes to safe transportation and cleans environment using economically viable and easily accessible resources. As demonstrated in reports [7][8][9][10][11], hydroxyl radical has proven to be an effective activator of alkane molecules with quite low activation energy calculated to be between 8-15 kJ/mol [11]. Although least explored, one of the most viable means of obtaining hydroxyl radical, which can be implemented on an industrial production scale is dynamic cavitation of the hydrogen peroxide solution [12][13][14][15][16][17], being potential high energy oxidant, green, relatively cheap, easy to handle, and for the fact that its oxidation produces only water and oxygen as by-products [18].…”

The new pathway for methanol synthesis: Generation of methyl radicals from alkanes

“…Quantum chemical calculations [33] at the B3LYP/6-311++G (3df,3pd) DFT level of theory have substantiated the mechanism for methanol formation by the interaction of methyl radical with water molecule under the catalytic influence of NO 2 ( Table 3). The calculated energy barrier for splitting water molecule by methyl radical in the presence of NO 2 is intriguingly low, with a value (E a = +16.4 kJ/mol) as shown in Table 3.…”

Investigation of cavitational transformation of motor fuels

“…Використання кавітаційного реактора [7] та розроб леної установки кавітаційної переробки вуглеводнів [2] дозволить створити умови, при яких вказані речовини зможуть утворюватися безпосередньо з компонентів бен зину. Механізм процесу кавітаційної обробки насичених вуглеводнів в кавітаційному полі наведено в [1,[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18].…”