Midland, MI - January 24, 2008
The Dow Chemical Company today announced that Cardiff University and Northwestern University have been awarded research grants which together total over $6.4 million as part of the 2007 Dow Methane Challenge. The Challenge was initiated by Dow in March 2007 to identify collaborators and approaches in the area of methane conversion to chemicals. The awards to the teams led by Cardiff and Northwestern mark the culmination of the selection process.
Approximately 100 proposals from around the world were received in response to Dow’s open solicitation, representing top universities, institutes, and companies. The focus of the challenge was the conversion of methane, the major component of natural gas, to chemical feedstocks. Methane is particularly attractive as a raw material because of the presence of large reserves of natural gas in many parts of the world, but the technology for the conversion of these reserves to chemicals and liquid fuels remains elusive. Dow’s goal is to develop technologies using natural gas to produce the intermediates that form the foundation of today’s chemical industry.
The Methane Challenge seeks to discover truly revolutionary chemical processes. Mastery of methane chemistry would provide a completely new foundation for the production of chemicals and liquid fuels, bringing an alternative to petroleum in these applications and enabling the use of plentiful, though often remote, natural gas that today is uneconomical to transport to market. It could also reduce the flaring of gas associated with petroleum production and might even provide a means to upgrade landfill gas.
Methane has resisted the attempts of chemists over the last century to directly react and selectively form other chemicals. Recognizing the need for creative approaches, Dow Chemical took the unusual step of undertaking an open solicitation in an attempt to leave no stone unturned in the quest for innovative concepts. Dow is particularly interested in methods for conversion of methane to ethylene, propylene, or reasonable precursors for ethylene and propylene. Routes to the olefins requiring syngas and syngas conversion chemistries were explicitly excluded from the Methane Challenge. By bringing together its chemists and chemical engineers with the teams led by Cardiff and Northwestern, Dow hopes to develop world-changing technologies.
The Alternative Feedstock Program, an effort within the Dow Hydrocarbon and Energy (H&E) Business, is a portfolio of opportunities addressing near, intermediate and long-term options for providing advantaged raw materials for chemical production. The Methane Challenge is a component of the portfolio and is an example of long-term, innovative discovery research. Other parts of the program address more immediate feedstock issues, such as the recently announced sugarcane-to-polyethylene project in Brazil and research on clean chemical production from coal.
Approximately 100 proposals were received and evaluated to yield ten finalists. Finalists were invited to submit detailed, confidential proposals. Consultants hired to judge these proposals selected teams led by Cardiff and Northwestern to receive research grants that together total more than $6.4 million over the next three years. While Cardiff and Northwestern are the homes of the team leaders, both teams have sought expertise outside their university communities and are multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary teams.
Mauro Gregorio, Dow H&E Alternative Feedstocks global business director, stresses that “the Alternative Feedstock Program is all about innovation and creating possibilities for growth and differentiation. Methane activation holds the promise of bringing an advantaged feedstock position to Dow by reducing capital intensity, allowing growth in multiple geographies and improving Dow’s cost position.”
The open solicitation was “an opportunity to extend the Dow lab bench and find people with whom we might not routinely have contact,” said Charles Kresge, Dow research vice president for Basic Plastics & Chemicals/Hydrocarbons & Energy/Licensing R&D. “Methane conversion is one of the most challenging areas in catalysis and we hoped the Methane Challenge would attract the highest caliber of research. Clearly it did, and we are excited by the chance to collaborate with these truly world-class teams.”
Professor Tobin Marks, Vladimir Ipatieff Professor of Catalytic Chemistry and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University, leads the Northwestern team. The team Marks has assembled has a very strong track record in catalyst synthesis, characterization, modeling, implementation, and collaboration. Tobin Marks, Peter Stair, Harold Kung, Justin Notestein, Linda Broadbelt, and Mayfair Kung are Northwestern University faculty that will be involved. Christopher Marshall and Jeffrey Elam at Argonne National Laboratory and Matthew Neurock at the University of Virginia are also part of the team.
Northwestern will explore several approaches and seeks to provide a deeper scientific understanding. The Northwestern effort closely integrates creative synthesis, catalytic reaction mechanism studies under a variety of conditions, atomic scale catalyst characterization using a wide spectrum of cutting-edge physical techniques, and high level computational modeling. The focus is to achieve selective methane oxidation to olefins or other useful feedstocks via three very unconventional, complementary approaches. Control of oxidant concentrations by nano/subnanoscale catalyst environment engineering form the basis for Thrust I.
Thrust II capitalizes on recent alkane oxidation successes with μ-oxo complexes to create centers tuned for methane partial oxidation to methanol. Exploration of ligand and metal nuclearity effects on activity and selectivity, as well as studies of cooperativity between active sites within nano-engineered support structures will be probed to minimize methanol destruction at the active centers. Less aggressive, more selective “soft” oxidants for methane activation will be at the center of Thrust III. Use of soft oxidants will be explored as a means to avoid over-reaction. The three thrusts will be closely integrated, due to the common features in techniques and approaches. In this way, advances in synthesis, characterization, and mechanistic understanding can be rapidly integrated among the Thrusts.
The Cardiff team is led by Graham Hutchings. In addition to Hutchings, Stuart H. Taylor, Albert F. Carley and David J. Willock of the School of Chemistry at Cardiff are also on the team. Christopher J. Kiely of the Center for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology at Lehigh University and David Chadwick of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London complete the team. Hutchings has specialized in the study of the synthesis of heterogeneous catalysts throughout the 30 years since obtaining his PhD in 1975 from University College London. During his initial industrial career with ICI Petrochemicals (1975-1981) and AECI Ltd (1981-1984) he pioneered the preparation of high activity vanadium phosphate catalysts and other oxide catalysts. Since 1984 he has been involved in academic research in catalyst preparation and has published over 470 papers and patents on this and related topics of heterogeneous catalysis. His work on gold catalysis has been specifically recognized through the award of the 2004 the ENTEC Medal from the Institute of Chemical Engineers, the 2005 iAc Award for Applied Catalysis and the 2005 RSC Award for heterogeneous catalysis.
The team led by Cardiff will use a multidisciplinary approach to the design of very active oxidation catalysts that will activate methane at low temperatures (<200°C). Building on a recognized expertise in gold catalysis, the Cardifff team will design supported gold and bimetallic gold alloy catalysts that can selectively oxidize methane under mild reaction conditions. Recently, gold has been found to be a highly effective oxidation catalyst. The precise reasons for this high activity have yet to be understood, but is currently the subject of intense research interest. Inspiration for the Cardiff work derives from advances in gold catalysis.
“Success in this project has the potential to change the way we manufacture chemical intermediates in a revolutionary way,” says Hutchings. “The direct oxidation of methane to methanol and other useful products represents the most important remaining grand challenge in catalysis.”
“It is remarkable that a molecule as simple and abundant as methane should present such an obstacle to conventional catalytic methodologies,” adds Marks. “Clearly, unconventional, science-based approaches will be required to produce catalysts with the necessary activity and selectivity.”
About Dow
Northwestern University
Founded in 1851, Northwestern University is a private national research institution committed to excellent teaching, innovative research, and the personal and intellectual growth of its students in a diverse academic community. Northwestern combines its teaching and research in a highly collaborative environment that transcends traditional academic boundaries. Home to approximately 8,000 undergraduate and 6,200 graduate/professional students and 2,500 full-time faculty, Northwestern has two campuses. The main campus is located in Evanston, and the Chicago campus is home to the law school, medical school, and portions of the business school and School of Continuing Studies.
Northwestern is a world leader in catalysis, chemistry and materials science and engineering. The university has been at the forefront of catalysis research for more than 60 years and established the first materials science academic department in the world in the 1950s. The Materials Research Center, one of the oldest interdisciplinary research centers in the nation, followed in 1958, and the Center for Catalysis and Surface Science in 1984. Notable research highlights and strengths include the development of world-class inorganic/organometallic routes to catalyst synthesis; innovation in catalyst characterization under challenging reaction conditions; historic expertise in oxidation and polymerization catalysis; and a strong connection to Argonne National Laboratory. Learn more about Northwestern at www.northwestern.edu.
Cardiff University
Cardiff University is recognized in independent government assessments as one of Britain’s leading teaching and research universities. It is also ranked as one of the world’s top 100 universities by the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES). 2008 marks the 125th anniversary of Cardiff University having been founded by Royal Charter in 1883. Today the university combines impressive modern facilities and a dynamic approach to teaching and research. It’s breadth of expertise in research and research-led teaching encompasses: the humanities; the natural, physical, health, life and social sciences; engineering and technology; preparation for a wide range of professions; and a longstanding commitment to lifelong learning. Cardiff is a member of the Russell Group of the UK’s leading research universities. Visit the university website at: www.cardiff.ac.uk.
Cardiff School of Chemistry is internationally recognized for research in catalysis. The research covers nanoscience, surface electrochemistry, the synthesis and properties of high surface area, powdered materials, which is of direct industrial relevance, to more fundamental work on surface structure, and the fabrication and imaging of ultra-nanoparticles. Highlights of recent work include atomic resolution imaging of the surface structure of nanoparticles; the synthesis of new types of gold catalysts for environmental protection and pollutant abatement; the use of sunlight for clean fuel (hydrogen) production; and novel, clean routes to oxygenated organic molecules using hydrogen peroxide generated in-situ in the reactor. Visit: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/chemy
For Editorial Information:
Anne Ainsworth
The Dow Chemical Company
(989) 636-2959
Anne Isenhower
GolinHarris
(212) 373-6028
aisenhower@golinharris.com
