Plasma-Assisted One-Step Direct Methanol Conversion to Ethylene Glycol and Hydrogen: Process Intensification

Abstract

This perspective reports a process intensification strategy that converts methanol into ethylene glycol (MeOH-2-EG) in a single step to circumvent multi-step naphtha cracking into ethylene followed by ethylene epoxidation to ethylene oxide (EO) and the subsequent hydrolysis of EO to ethylene glycol (EG). Due to the thermodynamic restriction for the direct MeOH-2-EG, plasma-assisted catalysis was introduced, and platinum group metals were identified as prospective transition metal catalysts that can achieve the formation of strong metal hydride bonds and guarantee the controlled C–C coupling of two plasma-activated hydroxymethyl radicals (*CH2OH) from methanol, both of which are essential for the single-step MeOH-2-EG.

Keywords

• methanol
• dielectric barrier discharge plasma
• hydroxymethyl radicals
• ethylene glycol
• process intensification