Research of the process of formaldehyde and methanol synthesis by electronic catalysis

Every year, the industry is replacing more and more inorganic materials with organic polymers. The main part of formaldehyde is used for the production of phenol-formaldehyde, urea-formaldehyde and melamine-formaldehyde resins, which are then used for the production of chipboard, plywood and furniture. Methanol in the first place is a fairly common solvent. In organic synthesis, methanol is used to produce formaldehyde, formalin, acetic acid and a number of esters, isoprene, etc. Existing methods are quite complex and energy intensive. Therefore, one of the promising areas of research consists in the development of methods for the direct production of these compounds by incomplete oxidation of methane. For this purpose it is proposed to use a low-temperature plasma barrier discharge in the heterogeneous discharge zone. This increases the oxidation rate of methane to methanol and formaldehyde from 10 to almost 50 percent at relatively low energy costs. Depending on the activation method and content of the treated mixture and the catalyst, the yield of formaldehyde is different. The highest formaldehyde yield is achieved by treatment of pure methane in the discharge, with the subsequent addition of water vapor and carbon dioxide or a mixture of methane with water vapor in the arrester, with the subsequent addition of carbon dioxide on an iron-chromium catalyst. The maximum yield on the iron-chromium catalyst is the simultaneous treatment of a mixture of water and methane in one discharge and carbon dioxide – in the other. The methanol formation does not exceed or is substantially different from 10 % of the formaldehyde formation, except when the catalyst is chromium. The highest electricity costs per gram of formaldehyde at 10 kV are for the process of producing formaldehyde from pure natural gas at 350 ºC, and at a contact time of 0.173 seconds, the lowest – at 400 ºC from the natural gas + water + air mixture

methane; formaldehyde; methanol; electronic catalysis; oxidation