Chemical Papers 63 (2) 105–110 (2009) DOI: 10.2478/s11696-008-0100-5 ORIGINAL PAPER Biosynthesis of methanol from methane by OB3b ‡ Agata Markowska, Beata Michalkiewicz* Szczecin University of Technology, Institute of Chemical and Environment Engineering, ul. Pulaskiego 10, 70-322 Szczecin, Poland Received 25 March 2008; Revised 25 July 2008; Accepted 4 September 2008 Methanol has recently attracted significant interest in the energetic field. Current technology for the conversion of methane to methanol is based on energy intensive endothermic steam reform- ing followed by catalytic conversion into methanol. The one-step method performed at very low temperatures (35 ◦ C) is methane oxidation to methanol via bacteria. The aim of this work was to examine the role of copper in the one-step methane oxidation to methanol by utilizing whole cells of Methylosinus trichosporium OB3b bacteria. From the results obtained it was found that copper concentration in the medium influences the rate of bacterial biomass growth or methanol production during the process of methane oxidation to methanol. The presented results indicate that the process of methane oxidation to methanol by Methylosinus trichosporium OB3b bacteria is most efficient when the mineral medium contains 1.0 × 10 -6 mol dm -3 of copper. Under these conditions, a satisfactory growth of biomass was also achieved. c  2008 Institute of Chemistry, Slovak Academy of Sciences Keywords: methane, methanol, Methylosinus trichosporium OB3b, biosynthesis Introduction Methanol has recently attracted significant inter- est as an intermediate in the production of fuel ad- ditives such as MTBE (2-methoxy-2-methylpropane) and TAME (2-methoxy-2-methylbutane) or as alter- native fuel. Current technology for the conversion of methane to methanol is based on energy intensive en- dothermic steam reforming (reaction (1) and (2)) fol- lowed by catalytic conversion into methanol (reaction (3) and (4)) which has some equilibrium limitations. The production of syngas requires high temperature and pressure which leads to problems associated with reactor materials, operation and maintenance. In the process of methanol production from natural gas via syngas, about 60–70 % of the overall process costs are associated with the reforming process (Haggin, 1990) CH 4 +H 2 O ←- -→ CO + 3H 2 ∆ r H ◦ = = +206 kJ mol -1 (1) CO + H 2 O ←- -→ CO 2 +H 2 ∆ r H ◦ = = -42 kJ mol -1 (2) CO + 2H 2 O ←- -→ CH 3 OH ∆ r H ◦ = = -90 kJ mol -1 (3) CO 2 + 3H 2 ←- -→ CH 3 OH + H 2 O∆ r H ◦ = = -45 kJ mol -1 (4) A conversion of methane to methanol with the omission of synthesis gas would be economically ad- vantageous. In order to reduce the reforming cost, di- rect routes have attracted the attention of many re- searchers (Burch et al., 1989; Thomas et al., 1992). *Corresponding author, e-mail: beata.Michalkiewicz@ps.pl ‡ Presented at the 35th International Conference of the Slovak Society of Chemical Engineering, Tatranské Matliare, 26–30 May 2008. Author copy Author copy