PNNL-13501 - Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Figure 2. Setup for the second experiment
CH3OH + He produced mixtures of hydrocarbons with
total concentrations in the range of 2.5 to 2.8 µg/mL. A
comparison of chromatograms for the two mixtures can
be seen on Figure 3.
Figure 3. Comparison of chromatograms for two different
prepared mixtures
The concentration of CH3OH in both initial mixtures was
5.6 µg/mL. Therefore, if all methanol were converted to
hydrocarbons, it should produce approximately
2.8 µg/mL, because only half of methanol molecules
participated in synthesis of hydrocarbons. The conversion
of methane in these experiments was estimated at only 1
to 2%.
The recovery of the water and hydrocarbons in the
absence of methane was determined. The composition of
products of synthesis differed from those of the first
experiment, as seen in Figure 4.
268 FY 2000 Laboratory Directed Research and Development Annual Report
Figure 4. Comparison of chromatograms for He and
methane with methanol injection
The conversion of methane to liquid product was much
higher with this configuration, estimated at 20 to 25%.
Summary and Conclusion
The experiments performed demonstrated that conversion
of methane into liquid fuel is feasible with this approach.
However, the amount of methanol required to initiate
reaction was very high. The efficiency of the conversion
of natural gas (methane) was significantly lower than
reported in similar work in the former Soviet Union
(Polyakova et al. 1984). The difference may be
attributable to differences between in the exact
compositions of the catalyst used in this and the Soviet
Polyakova work. Our experiments were limited to only
one catalyst (obtained gratis from Mobil in proprietary
form) since other variants were not available with the
limited resources of this project. Although only partial
success was achieved, the results are encouraging and
further investigation may be warranted particularly in
view of the extreme importance of the problem
investigated.
Reference
Polyakova AA, GI Krilova, LO Kogan and GB Belan.
1984. Authors Certificate issued by State Committee
of USSR for Invention and Discovery Affairs,
3795531/23-04.