The heterogeneously catalyzed oxidative CH4 coupling reaction is known to proceed in a complex mechanism consisting of surface- and homogeneous gas phase reactions. The presented paper deals with the mathematical simulation of this reaction using a complex reaction model that combines a homogeneous gas phase model consisting of more than 180 reactions and a set of heterogeneous surface reactions for an Eley-Rideal mechanism. By fitting the simulation results to experimental data for a PbO/ - Al2O3 catalyst kinetic parameters for the catalytic elementary reactions were obtained. Sensitivity analyses were performed to show the importance of the individual catalytic reaction steps.
