High-Throughput Screening Approach to Identify New Catalysts for Total Oxidation of Methane from Gas Fueled Lean Burn Engines

In this contribution we present the results of a parallel high-throughput screening (HTS), which was carried out to identify new catalysts for the total oxidation of methane, a chemical compound that shows a significantly higher global warming potential compared to carbon dioxide. An interesting application for these materials is the abatement of unburned methane in exhaust gases from biogas fueled lean burn engines. After the synthesis of a high variety of different materials by a sol–gel procedure and their evaluation by infrared thermography under simplified reaction conditions, the activity of the most promising candidates was validated under a complex exhaust gas composition in a conventional plug flow reactor. The aging behavior of the best catalysts from the HTS was studied in a tenfold parallel reactor setup. Only a small number of the studied materials exhibited an interesting long term stability during the aging procedure. With this approach a high number of potential materials can be rapidly reduced to only a few catalysts which are promising for a possible industrial application.