| Summary: | The catalytic partial oxidation of methane (CPOM) to methanol has been regarded as a promising approach for methane utilization, despite that the conversion remains a formidable challenge in the perspective of catalysts. A novel catalyst system of multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) that supported Fe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> with existing I<sub>2</sub>, consisting of non-noble metal and working in weak acid at an ambient temperature, was investigated for CPOM. MWCNTs supported the Fe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> catalyst, which was prepared by the impregnation method and characterized via HRTEM, XRD, XPS, FT-IR, and BET techniques. The characterization results reveal that, as a non-noble metal catalyst, the Fe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>/MWCNTs catalyst had a good catalytic performance and stability in the CPOM. With the variation of reaction pressure and the dosage of Fe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>/MWCNTs, the catalyst system obtained the highest methane conversion rate of 7.41% and methanol selectivity of 86.3%, which is analogous to that of the equivalently strong acid catalyst system. The I<sub>2</sub>-Fe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>/MWCNTs catalyst system has great potential in the application of CPOM under mild, environmentally benign conditions, such as non-noble metal requirement, ambient temperature, and weak acid. The reaction mechanism was discussed.
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