Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, along with collaborating institutions, have developed a highly selective catalyst capable of converting methane into methanol in a single-step reaction. This advancement is detailed in a recent publication in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
The new process operates at a temperature lower than that required to make tea and exclusively produces methanol without additional byproducts. Traditional methods typically require three separate reactions under different conditions and higher temperatures.
“We pretty much throw everything into a pressure cooker, and then the reaction happens spontaneously,” said Juan Jimenez, a chemical engineer and lead author on the paper.
Brookhaven chemist Sanjaya Senanayake highlighted the potential for this technology to be used in isolated rural areas, removing the need for costly infrastructure associated with high-pressure liquified natural gas transport. “We could scale up this technology and deploy it locally to produce methanol that can be used for fuel, electricity, and chemical production,” he said.
Brookhaven Science Associates and the University of Udine have filed a patent cooperation treaty application for this catalyst's use. The team aims to work with entrepreneurial partners to bring this technology to market, motivated by the goal of recycling carbon to achieve net-zero carbon clean-energy solutions.
Jimenez noted their collaboration with Brookhaven’s Research Partnerships and Technology Transfer Office to identify potential clients and markets. The research builds on over a decade of collaborative efforts involving experts from DOE’s Ames National Laboratory and international collaborators from Italy and Spain.
The team utilized computational modeling and various techniques at Brookhaven’s National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) and Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) to understand how these catalysts function at breaking down methane into methanol. Earlier studies provided insights but required translation into real-world applications.
“What Juan has done is take those concepts that we learned about the reaction and optimize them,” Senanayake explained. This new work translates lab-scale synthesis into practical processes relevant for industrial applications.
A significant discovery was an interfacial layer of carbon between palladium and cerium oxide which drove the chemistry. “Carbon is often overlooked as a catalyst,” Jimenez said, but it played a crucial role in converting methane to methanol.
To study this unique chemistry, new research infrastructure was built both at NSLS-II beamlines ISS and IOS, enabling real-time monitoring of reactions under pressure using X-ray spectroscopy techniques.
NSLS-II scientist Dominik Wierzbicki designed reactors allowing high-pressure gas-solid-liquid reactions using X-ray spectroscopy. Study coauthors Iradwikanari Waluyo and Adrian Hunt also contributed by building setups for soft X-ray spectroscopy studies on cerium oxide during simulated reaction conditions.
Collaborators Jie Zhang and Long Qi at Ames Lab performed nuclear magnetic resonance studies providing insights into early stages of reactions; Sooyeon Hwang at CFN produced electron microscopy images identifying carbon in materials; while theorists Verónica Ganduglia-Pirovano and Pablo Lustemberg from Spain developed computational models explaining catalytic mechanisms.
The team discovered how their three-component catalyst exploits complex microenvironments to produce methanol selectively without byproducts. This streamlined process eliminates multiple steps traditionally needed for methane conversion.
“This is a very valuable example of carbon-neutral processing,” Senanayake stated, expressing optimism about scaling up this technology for untapped methane sources' utilization.
John Gordon, chair of Brookhaven's Chemistry Division, emphasized that innovations in catalyst design can advance future chemical processes significantly.