New Catalyst May Allow Exploitation of Natural Gas at Low Costs
21 November 2009 | Alternative Energy | 2 Comments
Natural gas is an exhaustible energy source and today methane is used excessively. That’s why researchers announced that natural gas resources will disappear in 130 years. In areas where natural gas is exploited and used excessively, it could disappear in 60 years. Also gas exploitation involves huge costs. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research have found a way to obtain natural gas cheaper.
They created a catalyst able to convert methane into methanol at lower costs. This catalyst is actually made of a nitrogenous material, a covalently triazine-based network. “This solid is so porous that the surface of a gram is approximately equivalent in size to a fifth of a football field,” says Markus Antonietta from Max Planck Institute of Colloids. Inserting Platinum Atoms into the voluminous lattice of the CBC is actually the key of this process. The catalyst oxidizes methane to methanol efficiently, because of this large area. A similar catalyst was developed by American chemist Roy Periana, and it seems that this new catalyst was inspired from American model. Ferdi Schuth, Director at the Max Planck and colleagues said that in the future they will work to develop this technology: “We are also looking for similar, even more effective catalysts … We have already found more efficient homogenous catalysts with ligands other than bipyrmidine.”
Tags: catalyst, CBC, covalently triazine-based network, effective catalysts, exhaustible energy source, gas exploitation, homogenous catalysts, Max Planck Institute for Coal Research, methane, methanol, Natural Gas, natural gas resources, nitrogenous material, Platinum Atoms
What is gravatar?
With Gravatar you can add a personal picture to your comments…