Methane chemisorption

A CH4 pyrolysis mechanism appears to be consistent with our observation that preheating improves partial oxidation selectivity. First, higher feed temperatures increase the adiabatic surface temperature and consequently decrease the surface coverage of O adatoms, thus decreasing reactions lOa-d. Second, high surface temperatures also increase the rate of H atom recombination and desorption of H2, reaction 9b. Third, methane adsorption on Pt and Rh is known to be an activated process. From molecular beam experiments which examined methane chemisorption on Pt and Rh (79-27), it is known that CH4 must overcome an activation energy barrier for chemisorption to occur. Thus, the rate of reaction 9a is accelerated exponentially by hi er temperatures, which is consistent with the data in Figure 1. 

Figure 17 A plot of the predicted initial chemisorption probability, SQ, vs. gas temperature, Tg, for a surface temperature of 1000 K, for methane chemisorption on Ir(l 10)-(l x 2). Shown in the plot are die contributions from die direct mechanism, trapping mediated mechanism, and die combined contribution of both mechanisms. Data adapted from Seets et al. [19].

The previous volume measurement was done by methane because this does not react and does not even adsorb on the catalyst. If it did, the additional adsorbed quantity would make the volume look larger. This is the basis for measurement of chemisorption. In this experiment pure methane flow is replaced (at t = 0) with methane that contains C = Co hydrogen. The hydrogen content of the reactor volume—and with it the discharge hydrogen concentration— increases over time. At time t - t2 the hydrogen concentration is C = C2. The calculation used before will apply here, but the total calculated volume now includes the chemisorbed quantity. 

It is obvious that one can use the basic ideas concerning the effect of alkali promoters on hydrogen and CO chemisorption (section 2.5.1) to explain their effect on the catalytic activity and selectivity of the CO hydrogenation reaction. For typical methanation catalysts, such as Ni, where the selectivity to CH4 can be as high as 95% or higher (at 500 to 550 K), the modification of the catalyst by alkali metals increases the rate of heavier hydrocarbon production and decreases the rate of methane formation.128 Promotion in this way makes the alkali promoted nickel surface to behave like an unpromoted iron surface for this catalytic action. The same behavior has been observed in model studies of the methanation reaction on Ni single crystals.129... 

This linear variation in catalytic activation energy with potential and work function is quite noteworthy and, as we will see in the next sections and in Chapters 5 and 6, is intimately linked to the corresponding linear variation of heats of chemisorption with potential and work function. More specifically we will see that the linear decrease in the activation energies of ethylene and methane oxidation is due to the concomitant linear decrease in the heat of chemisorption of oxygen with increasing catalyst potential and work function. 

Methane is a stable molecule and therefore hard to activate. As a result the sticking probability for dissociative chemisorption is small, of the order of 10 only, and ruthenium is more reactive than nickel. However, a stretched overlayer of nickel is significantly more active than nickel in its common form, in agreement with expectation. 

Let us now use the sequence of elementary steps to explain the activity loss for some of the catalysts The combination of hydrogen chemisorption and catalytic measurements indicate that blocking of Pt by coke rather than sintering causes the severe deactivation observed in the case of Pt/y-AljOj The loss in hydrogen chemisorption capacity of the catalysts after use (Table 2) is attributed mainly to carbon formed by methane decomposition on Pt and impeding further access. Since this coke on Pt is a reactive intermediate, Pt/Zr02 continues to maintain its stable activity with time on stream. 

The catalytic activity of ln/H-ZSM-5 for the selective reduction of nitric oxide (NO) with methane was improved by the addition of Pt and Ir which catalyzed NO oxidation, even in the presence of water vapor. It was also found that the precious metal, particularly Ir loaded in/H-ZSM-5 gave a low reaction order with respect to NO, and then showed a high catalytic activity for the reduction of NO at low concentrations, if compared with ln/H-ZSM-5. The latter effect of the precious metal is attributed to the enhancement of the chemisorption of NO and also to the increase in the amount of NO2 adsorbed on in sites. 

Reaction between carbon monoxide and dihydrogen. The catalysts used were the Pd/Si02 samples described earlier in this paper. The steady-state reaction was first studied at atmospheric pressure in a flow system (Table II). Under the conditions of this work, selectivity was 100% to methane with all catalysts. The site time yield for methanation, STY, is defined as the number of CH molecules produced per second per site where the total number of sites is measured by dihydrogen chemisorption at RT before use, assuming H/Pd = 1. The values of STY increased almost three times as the particle size decreased. The data obtained by Vannice et al. (11,12) are included in Table II and we can see that the methanation reaction on palladium is structure-sensitive. It must also be noted that no increase of STY occurred by adding methanol to the feed stream which indicates that methane did not come from methanol. 

Hydrogen is chemisorbed by diamond at temperatures from 400° upwards as was shown by Barrer (134b). Apparently, surface hydrides are formed as is indicated by the decrease in the capacity for potassium chemisorption (Table XIII). A significant decrease was also measured for the heat of immersion in water after hydrogen treatment at 800° [(55), Table XIV]. Methane is liberated when hydride-covered diamond is heated in a vacuum (153c). 

Besides oxidative coupling of methane and double bond isomerization reactions (242), a limited number of organic transformations have been carried out with alkali-doped alkaline earth metal oxides, including the gas-phase condensation of acetone on MgO promoted with alkali (Li, Na, K, or Cs) or alkaline earth (Ca, Sr, or Ba) (14,120). The basic properties of the samples were characterized by chemisorption of CO2 (Table VI). 

The change in selectivity when using CO instead of CO is not well understood. Either the active sites differ, as mentioned above, or the chemisorption of CO is weaker, thus promoting hydrogen chemisorption and the hydrogenative power of the catalyst. The correlation between formyl species and methane suggests that the former are intermediates in the methanation of CO. ... 

Early in the nineties Ruiz et al. reported enhanced catalyst activities and increased selectivities to alkenes and higher hydrocarbons upon addition of V, Mg, and Ce oxides to Co-based F-T catalysts.These variations were attributed to electronic effects induced by the transition metal oxide. Similar results were obtained by Bessel et al. using a Cr promoter in Co/ZSM-5 catalysts.This group observed that the addition of Cr improved the catalyst activity, and shifted the selectivity from methane to higher, generally more olefinic, hydrocarbons. Based on H2 and CO chemisorption, as well as TPR and TPD results, they suggested that the promotion was caused by an interaction between the transition metal oxide and the cobalt oxide, which inhibits... 

---