Studies of Direct Carbonylation of Methane on Silica- Supported Transition Metal Catalysts

Introduction A considerable effort has been made in the past decade to convert the cheap raw materials ---methane into more valuable compounds. Methane is thermodynamically stable and its activation and transformation pose a great challenge to homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis. Among various processes the oxidative coupling of methane is of considerable interest because it can produce C2 compounds in one step. Direct carbonylation of methane to form ethanal and ethanol is a very attractive route for the effective utilization of methane. This reaction is also thermodynamically not allowed in one reaction step, due to the positive change in Gibbs free energy (+18.90 kcal/mol at 500K). This thermodynamic limitation makes it impractical till now. Here we report the new method to achieve the direct carbonylation of methane on silicasupported transition metals.