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Bryan's Project Page - RISE summer 2005 |
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Intern: Bryan Elder, Chemical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara
Mentor: Jerry Macala
Faculty Supervisor: Peter Ford
Department: Department of Chemistry |
ACTIVATION OF METHANE BY BROMINATION OVER METAL-LOADED ZEOLITES.
The high cost of transporting natural gas has resulted in the
flaring of several trillion cubic feet per year. In order to transport the gas,
it must be either compressed under extreme pressure to a liquid state, or
converted to a liquid by chemical process. One such process allows the conversion
of linear alkanes to linear alcohols. This technique occurs in two steps:
bromination and metathesis. The bromination step is very important as it
activates the alkane for the metathesis step. It has been found that a
catalyst may enhance the conversion of methane at lower temperatures to
methylbromide, the desired product. Zeolites may be useful catalysts for this
reaction. Their cage-like structure is made up of AlO4 and SiO4 tetrahedra that
produce an overall negative charge on the zeolite. To compensate for this charge,
the zeolite can be easily loaded with metal cations that have been experimentally
successful in other metal-oxide catalysts. This new technique may provide a cheaper
and more effective method for the bromination of alkanes to alkylbromides.
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