AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF METHANE OXIDATIVE COUPLING IN FIXED BED REACTORS WITH A DISTRIBUTED OXYGEN FEED

Methane oxidative coupling has been carried out in a reactor with a distributed oxygen feed. The system consists of a catalytic bed of Li/MgO in a quartz reactor with one inlet for methane and one or more inlets for oxygen. To enable the comparison between the co-fed mode and the distributed feed mode, an especial experimental design was used in order to maintain the same contact time in the co-fed and in the distributed feed modes, and in order to minimize the temperature gradients caused by the exothermic oxidation process. The results clearly show that a distributed oxygen feed may give rise to significant increases in the hydrocarbon selectivity obtained at a given methane conversion,