Oxidative coupling of methane—A complex surface/gas phase mechanism with strong impact on the reaction engineering

• We investigated Mn/Na2WO/SiO2 at pressures up to 10 bar.
• Increasing pressure leads to higher C2+ selectivity.
• Temporal analysis of products technique was used to suppress undesired reactions.
• We estimate a maximum yield from the ratios of specific surface reactions.

The oxidative coupling of methane over Mn/Na2WO4/SiO2 has been investigated at reaction conditions suitable for industrial applications up to 10 bar in a fixed bed reactor as well as by temporal analysis of products (TAP) by admitting pulses of methane, ethane and ethene oxygen mixtures. The influence of pressure on selectivity is investigated and a concept for optimizing it is derived. A maximum yield is estimated from the ratios of the involved main reactions of the reaction network assuming that the undesired parallel reactions can be suppressed.

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