Catalytic conversion of light alkanes phase II. Topical report, January 1990--January 1993

The Topical Report on Phase II of the project entitled, Catalytic Conversion of Light Alkanes reviews work done between January 1, 1990 and September 30, 1992 on the Cooperative Agreement. The mission of this work is to devise a new catalyst which can be used in a simple economic process to convert the light alkanes in natural gas to oxygenate products which can either be used as clean-burning, high octane liquid fuels, as fuel components or as precursors to liquid hydrocarbon transportation fuel. This Topical Report documents our efforts to design, prepare, characterize and test novel catalysts for the mild selective reaction of light hydrocarbons with air or oxygen to produce alcohols directly. These catalysts are designed to form active metal oxo (MO) species and to be uniquely active for the homolytic cleavage of the carbon-hydrogen bonds in light alkanes producing intermediates which can form alcohols. Research on the Cooperative Agreement is divided into three Phases relating to three molecular environments for the active catalytic species that we are trying to generate. In this report we present our work on catalysts which have oxidation-active metals in polyoxoanions (PHASE II)