{"65562":{"#nid":"65562","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Scientists Finely Control Methane Combustion to Get Different Products","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EScientists have discovered a method to control the gas-phase\nselective catalytic combustion of methane, so finely that if done at room\ntemperature the reaction produces ethylene, while at lower temperatures it\nyields formaldehyde. The process involves using gold dimer cations as catalysts\n\u2014 that is, positively charged diatomic gold clusters. Being able to catalyze\nthese reactions, at or below room temperature,\u0026nbsp;\nmay lead to significant cost savings in the synthesis of plastics,\nsynthetic fuels and other\u0026nbsp; materials. The\nresearch was conducted by scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology and\nthe University of Ulm. It appears in the April 14, 2011, edition of \u003Cem\u003EThe Journal of Physical Chemistry C\u003C\/em\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201c\u003Csub\u003E\u0026shy;\u003C\/sub\u003EThe beauty of this process is that it allows us\nto selectively control the products of this catalytic system, so that if one\nwishes to create formaldehyde, and potentially methyl alcohol, one burns\nmethane by tuning its reaction with oxygen to run at\u0026nbsp; lower temperatures, but if it\u2019s ethylene\u0026nbsp; one is after,\u0026nbsp;\nthe reaction can be tuned to run at room temperature,\u201d said Uzi Landman,\nRegents\u2019 and Institute Professor of Physics and director of the Center for\nComputational Materials Science at Georgia Tech.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003EReporting last year in the journal \u003Cem\u003EAngewandte Chemie International Edition\u003C\/em\u003E, a team that included\ntheorists Landman and Robert Barnett from Georgia Tech and experimentalists\nThorsten Bernhardt and Sandra Lang from the University of Ulm, found that by using\ngold dimer cations as catalysts, they can convert methane into ethylene at room\ntemperature. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThis time around, the team has discovered that, by using the\nsame gas-phase gold dimer cation catalyst, methane partially combusts to\nproduce formaldehyde at temperatures below 250 Kelvin or -9 degrees Fahrenheit.\nWhat\u2019s more, in both the room temperature reaction-producing ethylene, and the\nformaldehyde generation colder reaction, the gold dimer catalyst is freed at\nthe end of the reaction, thus enabling the catalytic cycle to repeat again and\nagain. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe temperature-tuned catalyzed methane partial combustion\nprocess involves activating the methane carbon-to-hydrogen bond to react with\nmolecular oxygen. In the first step of the reaction process, methane and oxygen\nmolecules coadsorb on the gold dimer cation at low temperature.\u0026nbsp; Subsequently, water is released and the\nremaining oxygen atom binds with the methane molecule to form formaldehyde. If\ndone at higher temperatures, the oxygen molecule comes off the gold catalyst,\nand the adsorbed methane molecules combine to form ethylene through the\nelimination of hydrogen molecules.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003EIn both the current work, as well as in the earlier one,\nBernhardt\u2019s team at Ulm conducted experiments using a radio-frequency trap,\nwhich allows temperature-controlled measurement of the reaction products under\nconditions that simulate realistic catalytic reactor environment. Landman\u2019s\nteam at Georgia Tech performed first-principles quantum mechanical simulations,\nwhich predicted the mechanisms of the catalyzed reactions and allowed a\nconsistent interpretation of the experimental observations.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003EIn future work, the two research groups plan to explore the\nuse of multi-functional alloy cluster catalysts in low temperature-controlled\ncatalytic generation of synthetic fuels and selective partial combustion\nreactions.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\n\n\nScientists have discovered a method to control\nthe gas-phase selective catalytic combustion of methane, so finely that if done\nat room temperature the reaction produces ethylene, while at lower temperatures\nit yields formaldehyde. \u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Scientists find that combustion at room temperature yields ethylene, while at lower temperatures it yields formaldehyde."}],"uid":"27310","created_gmt":"2011-04-14 08:59:22","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:08:34","author":"David Terraso","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2011-04-14T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2011-04-14T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"65564":{"id":"65564","type":"image","title":"Controlling Methane Combustion to Get Different Products","body":null,"created":"1449176863","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:07:43","changed":"1475894579","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:42:59","alt":"Controlling Methane Combustion to Get Different Products","file":{"fid":"193240","name":"coverart-JPCC_NO_Title_TOBEUSED.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/coverart-JPCC_NO_Title_TOBEUSED.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/coverart-JPCC_NO_Title_TOBEUSED.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2647060,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/coverart-JPCC_NO_Title_TOBEUSED.jpg?itok=sxe2DisW"}}},"media_ids":["65564"],"groups":[{"id":"1183","name":"Home"}],"categories":[{"id":"149","name":"Nanotechnology and Nanoscience"},{"id":"150","name":"Physics and Physical Sciences"}],"keywords":[{"id":"4896","name":"College of Sciences"},{"id":"2850","name":"combustion"},{"id":"12801","name":"ethylene"},{"id":"7507","name":"formaldehyde"},{"id":"12800","name":"methane"},{"id":"382","name":"nanoscience"},{"id":"166937","name":"School of Physics"},{"id":"9180","name":"Uzi Landman"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Tech Media Relations\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELaura Diamond\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:laura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Elaura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-894-6016\u003Cbr \/\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-660-2926\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["david.terraso@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}