MIT News December 4, 2024 Anthropogenic methane emissions, particularly from diffuse and dilute sources, pose a significant challenge for oxidation and valorization as existing methane oxidation routes rely on high temperatures or pressures. Researchers at MIT found that the catalytic coupling of alcohol oxidase with the iron-modified ZSM-5 (Fe-ZSM-5) zeolite catalyst, created a tandem methanotrophic system that partially oxidized methane at ambient temperatures and pressures. They showed that methane-to-formaldehyde selectivity could exceed 90% at room temperature. The generated formaldehyde was rapidly incorporated into a growing urea polymer. According to the researchers their work presents a sustainable route for methane oxidation… […]
Tag Archives: Methane
Atmospheric methane increase during pandemic due primarily to wetland flooding, satellite data analysis finds
Phys.org September 24, 2024 The causes for the rapid rise of atmospheric methane concentrations over the past decade have been unclear. An international team of researchers (USA – Harvard University, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, UK) found that emissions from the wet tropics drove the 2010–2019 increase and the subsequent 2020–2022 surge, while emissions from northern mid-latitudes decreased. The 2020–2022 surge was principally contributed by emissions in Equatorial Asia and Africa. Wetlands were the major drivers of the 2020–2022 emission increases in Africa and Equatorial Asia because of tropical inundation associated with La Niña conditions, consistent with trends in the GRACE terrestrial […]
Found: The ‘holy grail of catalysis’ turning methane into methanol under ambient conditions using light
Science Direct June 30, 2022 Partial oxidation of methane (CH4) to methanol (CH3OH) lifts the energy density and drives the production of numerous chemicals. In nature, this is achieved by methane monooxygenase with di-iron sites, which is extremely challenging to mimic in artificial systems due to the high dissociation energy of the C–H bond in CH4 and facile over-oxidation of CH3OH to CO and CO2. An international team of researchers (UK, China, USA – University of Chicago, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Japan) has achieved the direct photo-oxidation of CH4 over mono-iron hydroxyl sites immobilized within a metal–organic framework, PMOF-RuFe(OH). Under […]