(574e) CH4 Transformation to Fuels By Photocatlysis: Rational Design of Catalysts

Methane hydrate/shale gas transformation is a potentially efficient pathway for both high value chemical production and renewable energy storage, thus has been attracting substantial interest over the last decades. However CH₄ activation is energy intensive and kinetically very challenging so that methane activation is regarded as the “holy grail” in the catalytically chemical process. Photocatalysis provides a cost efficient potential to activation of such small molecule at very mild conditions, while to achieve the potential is a huge challenge.[1]

Stimulated by our recent research outcomes on the charge dynamics in inorganic semiconductor photocatalysis, which reveal that the low reaction efficiency is due to both fast charge recombination and large bandgap of an inorganic semiconductor [1,2], together with the recent findings on atomic catalysis [3], we developed novel material strategies for photocatalytic methane conversion to methanol.

Highly dispersed atomic level iron species immobilised on a TiO₂ photocatalyst show an excellent activity for methane conversion, resulting into ~97% selectivity towards alcohols operated under ambient conditions by a one-step chemical process [4]. Such photocatalyst is also very stable, promising an attractive industrial process of methane upgrade. The dominating function of the iron species has also been investigated in detail.

1. Wang, H. Suzuki, J. Xie, O. Tomita, D. J. Martin, M. Higashi, D. Kong, R. Abe and J. Tang, Chem. Rev., 2018, 118, 5201-5241.
2. Tang, J. R. Durrant and D. R Klug, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2008, 130(42) 13885-13891.
3. Wang, J. Li and T. Zhang. Nat. Rev. Chem., 2018, 2, 65-81.
4. Xie, R. Jin, A. Li, Y. Bi,... G. Sankar, D. Ma and J. Tang, Nature Catalysis, 2018, 1, 889-896.