A team of researchers has described a transformational breakthrough. Through countless hours of research, they’ve mastered the art of leveraging methane — the primary component of natural gas — to create valuable bioactive compounds. Martín Fañanás and his team at the Center for Research in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Materials (CiQUS) of the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, have found a novel approach. This innovation has the potential to dramatically accelerate the manufacturing of in high-demand goods, like pharmaceutical compounds.
Earth’s most abundant fossil fuel, natural gas is an odorless combination of mostly methane, but also ethane and propane. The CiQUS team’s research is aimed at upgrading these crucial components to make valuable “building blocks” for the whole range of applications. The researchers used a novel catalyst to produce dimestrol. Beyond terrible reproductive outcomes, as it stands this non-steroidal estrogen used in hormone therapy was synthesized straight from methane.
The CiQUS group has created a pretty cool catalyst. It allows C─H allylation, an important chemical transformation that converts methane and other gaseous alkanes into useful materials. This process increases the value of methane. This work lays a foundation for the production of commodity chemicals via photocatalytic acylation.
The research describing these progress accurately was recently published in Science Advances, DOI 10.1126/sciadv.aea0783. It specifically points out the potential for upscaling methane and other gaseous alkanes into large-volume chemicals. Additionally, another related study appeared in Cell Reports Physical Science, with DOI 10.1016/j.xcrp.2025.102912, further underscoring the emerging significance of this research.
This project was led by researchers, Andrés M. Álvarez-Constantino and Akshay M. Nair. They employed attenuated ligand-to-metal charge transfer (LMCT) photocatalysis to enhance the efficiency of C─H allylation reactions. This collaborative and creative new method lies at the center of a broader research collaboration. It is meant to address the biggest hurdles to more effective and efficient natural gas component usage.
This work seeks to make the conversion of methane and other constituents of natural gas feasible. Our guiding principle is to produce scaleable, multi-platform building blocks for multiple industries. Pharmaceuticals in particular. This innovation provides a novel approach for directly converting methane into high-value chemicals. It would improve the sustainability and efficiency of chemical production processes by orders of magnitude.