The aim is to exploit a recent discovery concerning the production of a new high activity catalyst for use in the production of formaldehyde from the oxidation of methanol using a novel nanorod catalysts. These new catalysts have been protected by a patent filing. The key feature of these catalysts is that they give higher yields that the current commercial catalysts. Funding is requested to complete patent exemplification and to ensure commercial exploitation can be achieved.

The chemical industry recognises the need to address the principles of sustainability and there is an urgent need to design processes as new paradigms in modern manufacturing residues or, if unavoidable, to recycle them. However, sustainability also requires the design of chemical processes that minimise the use of energy and direct the reaction towards the desired products, i.e. high selectivity at the required conversion with minimum energy consumption. Catalysis must be at the core of any new chemical process and the development of active, stable, and selective catalysts will be key for chemical sustainability. Most industrial chemical processes involve several chemical steps and each step often uses a different catalyst. Product separation and purification between each step also requires further equipment and energy consumption and hence it is highly beneficial to simplify the overall process. In this project, we aim to minimise the number of individual steps in chemical processes by tandem reactions with multifunctional heterogeneous catalytic systems that can perform the consecutive chemical reactions in one reaction, and we will achieve this using microchannel reactors. Moreover, we aim to achieve this for the preparation of key platform chemicals e.g. acetic acid is a major chemical intermediate that currently require several chemical process steps. The main objective of this project is to design and develop multifunctional catalysts combined with a microchannel structured reactor to convert methane into value-added oxygenate products including methanol and acetic acid via a tandem oxidative carbonylation process. The use of tandem heterogeneous catalysis represents an exceptionally novel approach to both catalyst and reaction design. We will explore the use of microchannel reactors for methane oxidation/carbonylation. Catalyst synthesis will be coupled with this reactivity testing and catalyst design will be driven by the reactor data. Catalysts will be characterised using state-of-the-art techniques. The engineering and science will operate in an iterative manner with each new step informing the overall programme. What will success look like? Success will be the demonstration of the potential of a bespoke combination of a microchannel reactor coupled with multifunctional catalysts, generating enhanced performance that could lead to a paradigm shift in the synthesis and application of catalytic tandem reactions.

The aim is to exploit a recent discovery concerning a new catalytic route for methanol production based on using bio-renewable feedstocks as starting materials. This new process and associated catalysts has been protected by a patent filing. The key feature is that the process opens up a wholly new route for the manufacture of methanol which is a key commodity chemical. Funding is requested to complete patent exemplification and to ensure commercial exploitation can be achieved.

The aim is to exploit a recent discovery concerning the production of a new high activity catalyst for use in the production of hydrogen peroxide from the direct reaction between hydrogen and oxygen using novel gold palladium heteropolyacid catalysts. These new catalysts have been protected by a patent filing. The key feature of these catalysts is that they can be used in water as solvent at ambient temperature whereas all previous catalysts require low temperatures and organic solvents. Initial results show the new catalyst is over fifteen times as active as the current equivalent commercial catalyst. Funding is requested to complete patent exemplification and to ensure commercial exploitation can be achieved.

The aim is to exploit a recent discovery concerning the production of a new high activity catalyst for use in the production of hydrogen peroxide from the direct reaction between hydrogen and oxygen using pretreated supported gold-palladium alloy catalysts. The methodology uses a pretreatement of the support which switches off the sequential decomposition of hydrogen peroxide under reaction conditions thereby enabling very high selectivities to the desired hydrogen peroxide to be achieved together with high rates of production. Initial results show the new catalyst is over six times as active as the current equivalent commercial catalyst and retains complete specificity for hydrogen peroxide formation. Funding is requested to complete patent exemplification and to ensure commercial exploitation can be achieved.