Partial oxidation of methane with Cu-Zn-Al catalyst in a dielectric barrier discharge

A series of methanol synthesis catalyst containing Cu-Zn-Al (CZA) were prepared by co-precipitation method and applied for partial oxidation of methane into methanol using dielectric barrier discharge (DBD). The methanol synthesis process was occurred at ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure. In our experiment, CZA showed a high catalytic activity to increase the production of methanol. The methanol selectivity of CZA-assisted plasma process was twice higher than that of non-catalytic plasma process. The addition of other metals on CZA catalyst also produced a significant effect on the methanol production and it was found that yttrium could the best addition metal compared to Pt, Fe, and Ni. Instead of methanol, the reaction products of plasma reactions were dominated by H₂, CO, CO₂, C₂ and water. The optimum methanol selectivity reached 27% when 3% yttrium metal was doped over CZA.