Study On The Primary Battery Method For Preparing Methanol From Methane

Methane（CH₄） is the main component of natural gas and is one of the most important raw materials in the application of industrial production. However, the structure of methane molecule is relatively stable. It is more difficult for methane be directly changed into chemicals with high added value. Moreover, Regardless of methane gas or methane liquid, the storage and transportation costs are high and thus more than 90% methane is only used in heating until now. With the development of science and technology, people want to vigorously develop natural gas chemical industry and to use methane be as the raw material to synthesize chemicals. In the perspective of environmental protection, natural gas as a clean energy will gradually replace oil. Therefore, it has become a hot topic to find new ways to utilize methane in the field of catalysis research.In the process of methane conversion, there is a charged catalytic center and nuclear particles. The primary battery method can be used in methane conversion. The advantages of this method are to obtain the target product with the selection of different electrode materials, and the reaction rate can be controlled by controlling electrode potential. Because the activation energy of this reaction is relatively low, the reaction rate is much big than that in normal chemical catalytic reaction under the same conditions.In this thesis, four primary battery systems were designed. Under the condition of normal temperature, methane and oxygen were used as the anode and cathode fuels respectively. Platinum or platinum black was as anode surface catalyst. The catalysis oxidation process and the catalytic partial oxidation of methane to methanol in 6mol·L^-1 Na OH electrolyte and in 0.5mol·L^-1 H2SO4 electrolyte respectively were researched.Research results showed that when the electrolyte was 0.5mol·L^-1 H2SO4 solution, platinum catalyst was not good for producing methanol. When the electrolyte was 6mol·L^-1 Na OH solution, platinum catalyst was beneficial to the producing methanol. Platinum black as the anode of the primary battery was better than platinum in producting methanol. In four primary battery systems, methanol yield under optimum conditions was up to 15.79% and higher selectivity of methanol. The open circuit voltage of the primary battery increased with reaction temperature increasing and its maximum value was 0.2V.