Partial oxidation of methane, methanol, and mixtures of methane and methanol, methane and ethane, and methane, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide

The homogeneous partial oxidation of methane involves the primary reactions of methane oxidation as well as the secondary reactions with the reaction products formaldehyde, methanol, and carbon monoxide. The complex free-radical set of reactions are modeled using a pseudo-first-order reaction parallel-series network of the three reactions: methane to methanol, methane to carbon monoxide, and methanol to carbon monoxide. The secondary reaction of methanol to carbon monoxide increases as the oxygen concentration in the feed increases. For experiments with 100% oxygen conversions, increases in residence time and temperature result in further loss of methane and methanol to CO. For temperatures greater than 710K some oxidative coupling occurs to produce ethane. The selectivity of methanol was 34-55% for feeds of 2.3-4.4% oxygen and 95-98% methane and 50 atm. The selectivity was highest at low conversions and low oxygen feed concentrations.