Non-oxidative methane coupling is the process of converting methane to C2 products through the C-C coupling of two methyl groups. While C2 products such as ethylene and ethane are valuable products as potential chemical feedstocks in the petrochemical industry, the process is limited by low yields of value-added products as the thermodynamic equilibrium favors heavy hydrocarbons and coke products under traditional continuous heating at high temperatures. Platinum has shown to be an appropriate catalyst for dissociating methane and adsorbing methyl groups to eventually form C2 products. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations are used to identify the reaction mechanism over a single platinum atom catalyst adsorbed on In2O3 (111), V2O5 (010), ZnO (100), and Ga2O3 (100) metal oxide supports. Pt/Ga2O3 (100) resulted in the
lowest predicted apparent energy barrier to forming ethane as a result of stable intermediates along the reaction pathway. Controlling the time dependence of reactor temperature through dynamic heating profiles can alter the overall reactor performance. The ethylene yield on a FeC2 on SiO2 catalyst was significantly improved to 18% under a controlled heat pulse duration of 10 ms. The distribution of ethylene yield over various pulse durations and temperature ranges provides insight into reactor conditions that can best optimize the production of value-added products in methane conversion.
