Electrochemical Modification of Ag-MgO Catalyst Electrodes during Methane Oxidation

The partial oxidation of methane is one of the most challenging problems in hetero-geneous catalysis. Methane is a very stable molecule and its heterogeneous catalytic oxi-dation usually results to complete oxidation products, i.e. CO 2 and H20. J.H. Lunsford and his co-workers have succeeded recently in converting CHm to ethylene and ethane at re-markably high'selectivities (1). The parpose of the present communication is to report that the intrinsic catalytic activity and selectivity of the reaction can be signifi-cantly altered by using an electrochemical oxygen pump. To that end the oxidation of CJ~ was studied on Li/MgO-Ag catalysts supporte