Making Methane a More Useful Fuel: Catalyst Possibilities?

[iwant2beoz]

This might be a stupid question so forgive me if it is. I am looking for a way to make methane more useful as a fule and it seems to me that to do that I would have to make it into a longer hydro-carbon chane. Is there a catalyst that could be used to do this? Thanks in advance.

 

[Borek]

Define "more useful as a fuel".

 

[russ_watters]

Define "more useful as a fuel".

Yeah; by most standards, methane is pretty useful as a fuel.

 

[iwant2beoz]

A higher energy content, like propane.

 

[SteamKing]

It takes energy to make methane have a higher energy content by constructing a longer carbon chain. That's what they do in oil refineries: they break down long-chain molecules into shorter chain stuff, and take short stuff and synthesize longer-chain molecules, until Chief Engineer Goldilocks says the product is "Just right".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_Refinery

 

[russ_watters]

A higher energy content, like propane.

Per what unit? Natural gas is higher per unit mass than propane, but a little lower per unit volume (in liquid form). Still not sure what that has to do with being useful though.

 

[iwant2beoz]

Maybe I should rephrase my question. I want to make natural gas comporable to gasoline as a fuel?

 

[SteamKing]

Then, you'll have to link CH4 molecules until you start to obtain octane [C8H18] and larger molecules. As was stated earlier, it takes energy to do this. It is done somewhat on a limited basis in current petroleum refineries to produce gasoline, diesel fuel, etc., from crude oil feed stock.

There are other processes, like the Fischer-Tropsch and the Bergius processes, which produce synthetic liquid fuels from coal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer–Tropsch_process

 

[iwant2beoz]

So it technically can be done but its not very efficient. Well thank you