A non-syn-gas catalytic route to methanol production

Cheng-Tar Wu, Kai Man Kerry Yu, Fenglin Liao, Neil Young, Peter Nellist, Andrew Dent, Anna Kroner and Shik Chi Edman Tsang ()
Additional contact information
Cheng-Tar Wu: Wolfson Catalysis Centre, University of Oxford
Kai Man Kerry Yu: Wolfson Catalysis Centre, University of Oxford
Fenglin Liao: Wolfson Catalysis Centre, University of Oxford
Neil Young: University of Oxford
Peter Nellist: University of Oxford
Andrew Dent: Diamond Light Source Ltd, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus
Anna Kroner: Diamond Light Source Ltd, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus
Shik Chi Edman Tsang: Wolfson Catalysis Centre, University of Oxford

Nature Communications, 2012, vol. 3, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Methanol is an important platform molecule for chemical synthesis and its high energy density also renders it a good candidate as a cleaner transportation fuel. At present, methanol is manufactured from natural gas via the indirect syn-gas route. Here we show that ethylene glycol, a versatile chemical derived from biomass or fossil fuels, can be directly converted to methanol in hydrogen with high selectivity over a Pd/Fe2O3 co-precipitated catalyst. This opens up a possibility for diversification in natural resources for energy-starved countries. The working catalyst contains extremely small 'PdFe' clusters and metal adatoms on defective iron oxide to give the required metal-support interaction for the novel synthesis.

Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2053 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:3:y:2012:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms2053

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2053

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().