ABSTRACT Methane, the most stable alkane, is significantly more stable than its partial oxidation products. This renders the highly selective conversion of CH 4 to CH 3 OH an extremely intractable challenge, especially when using molecular oxygen as the oxidant. In this work, we synthesized a bimetallic‐modified zeolite composite catalyst (PdCo bimetallic nanoclusters supported on H‐ZSM‐5 molecular sieve, denoted as PdCo@H‐ZSM‐5) via a simple impregnation method. PdCo@H‐ZSM‐5 can efficiently activate H 2 and O 2 to highly selectively oxidize CH 4 to CH 3 OH under mild conditions (70°C), achieving a remarkable CH 3 OH yield of 2349 µmol g cat −1 h −1 (249 mmol g Pd −1 h −1 ). Significantly, PdCo@H‐ZSM‐5 is the sole catalyst reported to date that can achieve over 99% CH 3 OH selectivity in the oxidation of CH 4 by molecular oxygen under mild conditions. This work is expected to inspire new technologies for industrial CH 4 to CH 3 OH conversion, promoting more sustainable chemistry and engineering. Furthermore, the low‐energy consumption, high‐efficiency activated oxygen catalyst eliminates the necessity for transporting and storing highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide, serving as a foundation for other green oxidation reactions.
Wang et al. (Tue,) studied this question.