A [Cu2O]2+ core in Cu-ZSM-5, the active site in the oxidation of methane to methanol

Driven by the depletion of crude oil, the direct oxidation of methane to methanol has been of considerable interest. Promising low-temperature activity of an oxygen-activated zeolite, Cu-ZSM-5, has recently been reported in this selective oxidation and the active site in this reaction correlates with an absorption feature at 22,700 cm−1. In the present study, this absorption band is used to selectively resonance enhance Raman vibrations of this active site. 18O2 labeling experiments allow definitive assignment of the observed vibrations and exclude all previously characterized copper-oxygen species for the active site. In combination with DFT and normal coordinate analysis calculations, the oxygen activated Cu core is uniquely defined as a bent mono-(μ-oxo)dicupric site. Spectroscopically validated electronic structure calculations show polarization of the low-lying singly-occupied molecular orbital of the [Cu2O]2+ core, which is directed into the zeolite channel, upon approach of CH4. This induces significant oxyl character into the bridging O atom leading to a low transition state energy consistent with experiment and explains why the bent mono-(μ-oxo)dicupric core is highly activated for H atom abstraction from CH4. The oxygen intermediate of Cu-ZSM-5 is now the most well defined species active in the methane monooxygenase reaction.