There’s a surprising amount of information out there about methane gas…

…or is it so surprising when you realize the impact methane gas has on our daily lives?

General chemical facts

• Methane is a colorless, odorless flammable gas.
• It is the simplest member of the alkane series of hydrocarbons (a compound of hydrogen and carbon).
• Its chemical formula is CH4.

These are the basics. They’ll show the professor that you’ve at least done your standard homework! But how about some more detail?

Other chemical facts

• Melting point: - 296.5ºF
• Boiling point: - 258.88ºF
• Molecular shape: tetrahedral
• Related alkanes: ethane and propane
• Related compounds: chloromethane; formaldehyde; formic acid; methanol.

With these chemical facts out of the way, we can turn to a more practical issue – avoiding the dangers that methane poses.

Safety

Being colorless, odorless and flammable, is a scary combination.  There is no obvious way to detect and identify methane without the use of sophisticated instruments.  Devices for methane detection rage from simple alarms that sound when dangerous levels of methane are detected, to high-end laser gas detectors that provide real time gas analysis, alarms and data logging.

Despite these dangers, methane is widely used in residential, commercial and industrial environments. This extremely powerful gas is carefully monitored and controlled using pipelines, tanks and methane gas detection equipment.

Natural gas

• Methane is the main constituent (about 97% by volume) of natural gas.
• As natural gas, methane has an energy content of 1000 BTU/standard cubic foot and appears in millions of homes and businesses for the purposes of heating and cooking.

Other uses

• Methane is burned in steam boilers and gas turbines to generate electricity.
• In the form of compressed natural gas, methane is an environmentally-friendly vehicle fuel.
• Industrial uses include the production of methanol, acetic acid, acetic anhydride, acetylene and hydrogen.

Because methane is so prevalent, it is reasonable to suppose that it has an effect on our environment. And indeed it does.

The environment

• Taken over a period of 100 years, methane gas has a warming effect on the earth 25 times greater than the same amount of carbon dioxide. There is 220 times as much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, however, than methane.
• Nonetheless, after spending seven years in the atmosphere, half of the methane converts to water – and carbon dioxide.
• The concentration of methane in the atmosphere is larger in the northern hemisphere because the majority of the natural and human sources are here.
• Scientists have recently identified that living plants (including forests) send millions of tons of methane into the atmosphere each year.
• Some scientists now believe that methane may have caused more than one-third of global warming since pre-industrial days.

Beyond our world, scientists have evidence that there are significant deposits of methane.

Extraterrestrial methane

• NASA is studying the use of methane as a fuel for rockets. The point of this research is to enable spacecraft to refuel with methane from planets such as Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.

What this space-age methane may be called remains to be seen. Here on earth, there are various alternative names.

Synonyms of methane

• Biogas
• Fire damp
• Marsh gas
• Natural gas
• R 50

Whatever the name, the above facts about methane will, we hope, impress your biochemistry professor or anyone else you feel should know about them. More seriously, these individual snippets of information together create a picture of a gas that helps drive our economy and improve our lives. But methane is also a gas that must be controlled and monitored. The BPA Laser Methane Gas Detector helps you do just that.