Oxidative Conversion of Methane/Natural Gas into Higher Hydrocarbons

Oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) to ethylene and ethane is a futuristic process of great practical importance for the effective utilization of methane/natural gas. A brief summary of the work carried out at National Chemical Laboratory (Pune) for the development of catalyst and catalytic process for OCM, particularly addressing the major issues/limitations of the OCM process and efforts made to overcome the problems is presented. This review particularly covers the development of a number of highly active/selective and stable unsupported and supported (using commercial catalyst carriers) catalysts for the OCM process and also the process of improvements/modifications to overcome most of the limitations of OCM.