We proposed to demonstrate the effectiveness of a catalytic membrane reactor (a ceramic membrane combined with a catalyst) to selectively produce methanol by partial oxidation of methane. Methanol is used as a chemical feedstock, gasoline additive, and turbine fuel. Methane partial oxidation using a catalytic membrane reactor has been determined as one of the promising approaches for methanol synthesis from methane. In the original proposal, the membrane was used to be used to selectively remove methanol from the reaction zone before carbon oxides form, thus increasing the methanol yield. Methanol synthesis and separation in one step would also make methane more valuable for producing chemicals and fuels. The cooling tube inserted inside the membrane reactor has created a low temperature zone that rapidly quenches the product stream. This system has proved effective for increasing methanol selectivity during CH[sub 4] oxidation, and we are using and modifying this non-isothermal, non-permselective membrane reactor.

We proposed to demonstrate the effectiveness of a catalytic membrane reactor (a ceramic membrane combined with a catalyst) to selectively produce methanol by partial oxidation of methane. Methanol is used as a chemical feedstock, gasoline additive, and turbine fuel. Methane partial oxidation using a catalytic membrane reactor has been determined as one of the promising approaches for methanol synthesis from methane. In the original proposal, the membrane was used to be used to selectively remove methanol from the reaction zone before carbon oxides form, thus increasing the methanol yield. Methanol synthesis and separation in one step would also make methane more valuable for producing chemicals and fuels. The cooling tube inserted inside the membrane reactor has created a low temperature zone that rapidly quenches the product stream. This system has proved effective for increasing methanol selectivity during CH{sub 4} oxidation, and we are using and modifying this non-isothermal, non-permselective membrane reactor.

Mathematical programming models have been developed to represent imperfectly competitive (oligopolistic) market structures and the interdependencies of decision-making units in establishing prices and production levels. The solution of these models represents an economic equilibrium. A subgame perfect equilibrium formulation explicitly considers that each agent`s strategies depend on the current state of the system; the state depends solely on previous decisions made by the economic agents. The structure of an industry-wide model that is formulated as a subgame perfect equilibrium problem is a matrix of simultaneous mathematical programming problems, where the rows represent time periods and the columns represent agents. This paper formally defines the subgame perfect equilibrium problem that includes mathematical programs for agent decision problems, and it characterizes the feasible space in a way that is conducive to the solution of the problem. The existence of equilibrium solutions on convex subspaces of the feasible region is proved, and this set is shown to contain the subgame perfect equilibrium solutions. A procedure for computing equilibrium solutions and systematically searching the subspaces is illustrated by a numerical example.