Nonoxidative Coupling of Methane to Produce C2 Hydrocarbons on FLPs of an Albite Surface

The characteristics of active sites on the surface of albite were theoretically analyzed by density functional theory, and the activation of the C-H bond of methane using an albite catalyst and the reaction mechanism of preparing C-2 hydrocarbons by nonoxidative coupling were studied. There are two frustrated Lewis pairs (FLPs) on the (001) and (010) surfaces of albite; they can dissociate H-2 under mild conditions and show high activity for the activation of methane C-H bonds. CH4 molecules can undergo direct dissociative adsorption on the (010) surface, whereas a 50.07 kJ/mol activation barrier is needed on the (001) surface. The prepared albite catalyst has a double combination function of the (001) and (010) surfaces; these surfaces produce a spillover phenomenon in the process of CH4 activation reactions, where CH3 overflows from the (001) surface with CH3 adsorbed on the (010) surface to achieve nonoxidative high efficiently C-C coupling with an activation energy of 18.51 kJ/mol. At the same time, this spillover phenomenon inhibits deep dehydrogenation, which is conducive to the selectivity of the C-2 hydrocarbons. The experimental results confirm that the selectivity of the C-2 hydrocarbons is maintained above 99% in the temperature range of 873 K to 1173 K.