A minority of methanotrophs are able to utilize multicarbon compounds as growth substrates in addition to methane. The pathways utilized by these microorganisms for assimilation of multicarbon compounds, however, have not been explicitly examined. Here, we report the draft genome of the facultative methanotroph Methylocystis sp. strain SB2 and perform a detailed transcriptomic analysis of cultu...

2014 The oxidation of methane and n-butane with CO2 has been studied in 35 MHz electrical discharges, operated at variable gas flow rates (6-30 (STP) min-1), power densities (2-8 cal cm-3 s-1) and constant pressure of 20 torr. Evidence is presented that the primary step of the process is the rupture of a C-H bond and that the main route for the conversion of both methane and n-butane into CO is...

Modern energy challenges have motivated the development of electrochemical transformations of abundant feedstocks into valuable fuels and commodity chemicals. Now, reporting in ACS Central Science, Surendranath and co-workers introduce an electrochemical strategy that enables an organic transformation long-considered a grand challenge: selective methane activation. Methane, the primary componen...

Inorganic carbonates, which occur abundantly on earth, constitute an inexpensive natural source of carbon. Therefore, the direct conversion of these carbonates into methane is of considerable importance. Thermal decomposition of transition metal carbonates with the composition MCa(CO(3))(2) (where M=Co, Ni, or Fe, and M/Ca is 1:1) and M(1)M(2)Ca(CO(3))(3) (where M(1)M(2)=CoNi, NiFe, or FeCo, an...

Nanoditches from selective etching of periodically twinned SiC nanowires were employed to hinder the migration and coalescence of Pd nanoparticles supported on the nanowires, and thus to improve their catalytic stability for total combustion of methane. The results show that the etched Pd/SiC catalyst can keep the methane conversion of almost 100% while the unetched one has an obvious decline i...

Converting wood to grid quality methane allows to distribute a CO2 free, renewable enery resource in a conventional energy distribution system and use it in transportation applications. Using a previously developed thermo–economic process model for thermochemical production of synthetic natural gas from wood and applying a multi–objective optimisation algorithm, the present paper assesses the p...

In this paper, recent results of plasma processing of natural gas are described. The use of a plasma reformer for the generation of hydrogen rich gas from natural gas has been investigated. In an accompanying paper, progress in plasma reforming of diesel fuel is described. The reformate composition has been investigated as a function of the initial mixture of air and methane. High methane conve...

The La2NiO4 film was synthesized on the 304 stainless steel (SS) mesh. The hydrogen reduction of La2NiO4 generated homogeneous nanocatalyst particles (probably Ni/La2O3) over which methane was cracked, producing carbon nanotubes/microfibers and hydrogen. The carbon nanotubes/microfibers were strongly bonded to the SS mesh. It was observed that the methane conversion always reached its maximum a...

In order to gain a better understanding of the chemistry of methanl-to-hydro-carbon conversion, it is necessary to determine the nature of the primary reaction products. Experiments carried out in this work on H-ZSM-11, using a continuous flow reactor linked to an on-line gas chromatograph demonstrated that ethylene and methane are the primary reaction products. The results obtained using s...