Methane to acetic acid over Cu-exchanged zeolites: mechanistic insights from a site-specific carbonylation reaction.

ABSTRACT: The selective low temperature oxidation of methane is an attractive yet challenging pathway to convert abundant natural gas into value added chemicals. Copper-exchanged ZSM-5 and mordenite (MOR) zeolites have received attention due to their ability to oxidize methane into methanol using molecular oxygen. In this work, the conversion of methane into acetic acid is demonstrated using Cu-MOR by coupling oxidation with carbonylation reactions. The carbonylation reaction, known to occur predominantly in the 8-membered ring (8MR) pockets of MOR, is used as a site-specific probe to gain insight into important mechanistic differences existing between Cu-MOR and Cu-ZSM-5 during methane oxidation. For the tandem reaction sequence, Cu-MOR generated drastically higher amounts of acetic acid when compa

SUBMITTER: Narsimhan K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5412725 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature