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Electrocatalysis

Tethered oxygen turns methane into methanol

Nature Catalysis volume 8, pages 629–630 (2025)Cite this article

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Precise control of the oxidant — that is, preventing overoxidation — is the missing link in low-temperature methane upgrading. Now, the electro-splitting of carbonate on rutile IrO2 is shown to cover the surface with on-top oxygen adatoms that act as tethered, single-step hydrogen abstractors. One subset can pull the hydrogen from methane to form a methoxy intermediate, while the neighbouring site can protonate this intermediate to form methanol. Together, this mechanism delivers a room-temperature conversion of methane to methanol with >90% selectivity.

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Fig. 1: Schematic representation of the oxygen-on-a-leash mechanism.

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Acknowledgements

This work was performed under the auspices of the US Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract DE-AC52-07NA27344 under the IM release number LLNL-JRNL-2007074.

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  1. Materials Science Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA

    Aditya Prajapati

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  1. Aditya Prajapati
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Correspondence to Aditya Prajapati.

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Prajapati, A. Tethered oxygen turns methane into methanol. Nat Catal 8, 629–630 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-025-01381-y

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