Europium-Magnesium-Aluminum-Based Mixed-Metal Oxides as Highly Active Methane Oxychlorination Catalysts.

Methane oxychlorination (MOC) is a promising reaction for the production of liquefied methane derivatives. Even though catalyst design is still in its early stages, the general trend is that benchmark catalyst materials have a redox-active site, with, e.g.

Favoring the Methane Oxychlorination Reaction over EuOCl by Synergistic Effects with Lanthanum.

The direct conversion of CH into fuels and chemicals produces less waste, requires smaller capital investments, and has improved energy efficiency compared to multistep processes. While the methane oxychlorination (MOC) reaction has been given little attention, it offers the potential to achieve high CH conversion levels at high selectivities. In a continuing effort to design commercially interesting MOC catalysts, we have improved the catalyst design of EuOCl by the partial replacement of Eu by La.

Mechanistic Insights into the Lanthanide-Catalyzed Oxychlorination of Methane as Revealed by Spectroscopy.

Commercialization of CH valorization processes is currently hampered by the lack of suitable catalysts, which should be active, selective, and stable. CH oxychlorination is one of the promising routes to directly functionalize CH, and lanthanide-based catalysts show great potential for this reaction, although relatively little is known about their functioning. In this work, a set of lanthanide oxychlorides ( LnOCl with Ln = La, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, and Ho) and Er- and Yb-based catalysts were synthesized, characterized, and tested.