{"id":141417,"date":"2022-06-30T14:29:29","date_gmt":"2022-06-30T19:29:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/found-the-holy-grail-of-catalysis-turning-methane-into-methanol-under-ambient-conditions-using-light"},"modified":"2022-06-30T14:29:29","modified_gmt":"2022-06-30T19:29:29","slug":"found-the-holy-grail-of-catalysis-turning-methane-into-methanol-under-ambient-conditions-using-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/found-the-holy-grail-of-catalysis-turning-methane-into-methanol-under-ambient-conditions-using-light","title":{"rendered":"Found: The \u2018holy grail of catalysis\u2019\u2014turning methane into methanol under ambient conditions using light"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3M7K2pGoBvc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>An international team of researchers, led by scientists at the University of Manchester, has developed a fast and economical method of converting methane, or natural gas, into liquid methanol at ambient temperature and pressure. The method takes place under continuous flow over a photo-catalytic material using visible light to drive the conversion.<\/p>\n<p>To help observe how the process works and how selective it is, the researchers used neutron scattering at the VISION instrument at Oak Ridge National Laboratory\u2019s Spallation Neutron Source.<\/p>\n<p>The method involves a continuous flow of methane\/oxygen-saturated water over a novel metal-organic framework (MOF) catalyst. The MOF is porous and contains different components that each have a role in absorbing light, transferring electrons and activating and bringing together methane and oxygen. The liquid methanol is easily extracted from the water. Such a process has commonly been considered \u201ca holy grail of catalysis\u201d and is an area of focus for research supported by the U.S. Department of Energy. Details of the team\u2019s findings, titled \u201cDirect photo-oxidation of methane to methanol over a mono-iron hydroxyl site,\u201d are published in <i>Nature Materials.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An international team of researchers, led by scientists at the University of Manchester, has developed a fast and economical method of converting methane, or natural gas, into liquid methanol at ambient temperature and pressure. The method takes place under continuous flow over a photo-catalytic material using visible light to drive the conversion. To help observe [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1635],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-materials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141417\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}