Activation of methane with transition metal complexes
Temirlan Nursultan
Department of Chemistry, School of Science and Technology, Nazarbayev University,
Astana, Kazakhstan
Email: [email protected]
Abstract
For the last decades natural gas has been recognized to be one of the main sources of energy
together with the coal and oil. The major component of natural gas is methane constituting for
almost 90% of its components. However, the main portion of the whole methane produced
worldwide is being combusted for the energy generation while it can serve as an excellent
carbon feedstock for the production of chemicals widely used in industry, especially for the C1
and C2 chemistry. The only industrially used chemicals synthesized from methane are made
through synthesis gas (mixture of H 2 and CO) which is relatively energy consuming and
commercially unfavourable. Taking into account the availability and affordability of the
methane, development of alternative processes for the direct conversion of methane to other
useful chemicals can lead to the substantial industrial progress. The main problem of the
conversion of methane is the breakage of C-H bond which is very strong and chemically inert
in methane. So the main goal is to cleave this bond by substituting it with the other element
(C-X). This process is called activation of C-H bond. The most promising ways to convert the
methane to other important chemicals are accomplished through the usage of the transition
metal complexes. This presentation presents the latest achievements in the usage of the
transition metal complexes in the activation of the methane.
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