rhsingleatomcatalystfordirectconversionofmethanetooxygenates

Along with the fast development of economy and growth of world's population, the demand for energy is significantly enhanced. The conventional petroleum and coal resources are unrenewable and bring about severe pollution to the environment. In the past decade, the technological advances in drilling and exploitation lead to a significant increase in the production capacity of shale gas worldwide. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that the annual shale gas output would rise by 104% from 2012 to 2040, which could ignite “shale gas revolution” and change the energy landscape 1. As we know, the main component in natural and shale gas is methane which contributes to 83%–99%. Consequently, technologies utilizing methane efficiently are more and more recognized and predicted as leading actor in the coming century of natural/shale gas chemical engineering