SCREENING FOR ACTIVITY AND SELECTIVITY IN SMALL METAL-BASED OXIDATION CATALYSTS

摘要

The processes needed for light hydrocarbon conversion from natural gas into more valuable energy carriers and chemically relevant species is limited by their need for extreme synthetic conditions, making it infeasible to scale into industrial processes. Catalysts can be used to aid in these conversions; however, an efficient catalyst for selective oxidation under mild conditions has yet to be found. Materials comprising of just a few isolated metal centers have shown promise for these conversions, due to their structural and electronic isolation, thereby allowing the system to be directly tuned to produce a desired reaction. We plan to exploit this phenomena by utilizing small metal cluster catalysts supported on metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), which can be prepared by atomic layer deposition (ALD), with the goal to optimize a catalyst to selectivity oxidize ethane to ethanol.