ABSTRACT
The use of light alkanes (methane, ethane, propane and butane), originating from oil, natural and/or shale gas, or renewable resources, is increasingly attracting scientific interest since their direct utilization will offer alternative pathways to the preparation of high valuable chemicals, such as olefins, oxygenates and nitriles, that are nowadays produced mainly from olefins. In fact, Brazdil (Brazdil 2006; Cavani 2007) pointed out that the direct conversion of ethane and propane to commodity chemical intermediates has the potential to radically transform the chemical industry within the incoming years. However, the activation of these molecules is still a challenge, due to their high stability, since the conditions of pressure and temperature to activate C-H saturated bonds that are required are quite high, and subsequently, under such conditions, is difficult to control the selectivity of the desired products. In fact, the petrochemistry industry has evolved in the development of processes from acetylene, after olefins, and is currently involved in the development of the production of various chemical intermediates from alkanes directly. At the moment, the only well-established commercial alkane-based chemical process is the production of maleic anhydride from n-butane using catalysts type vanadium oxides and phosphorus, called VPO.
