Issue 14, 2020

Highly efficient light-driven methane coupling under ambient conditions based on an integrated design of a photocatalytic system

Abstract

Direct non-oxidative coupling of methane (NOCM) is an effective way to produce hydrocarbons. However, this process usually requires a high temperature (≥1100 °C) to break the C–H bond of CH4 and suffers catalyst deactivation due to coke formation. Photocatalytic NOCM is an ideal strategy to solve these issues. Herein, we designed a novel photocatalytic methane coupling system consisting of a continuous flow reactor and metal-loaded TiO2 photocatalysts with light-diffuse-reflection-surfaces. It was found that Au/TiO2 was the best catalyst for the system due to the easy transport of photoelectrons from TiO2 to Au particles to inhibit the photoelectron–hole recombination. The yield of C2H6 reached 81.7 μmol gcatalyst−1 h−1 with higher than 95% selectivity over Au/TiO2 under simulated 1.5G sunlight irradiation and ambient conditions (room temperature and 1 atm), which is 174% larger than the highest reported value. Furthermore, DFT calculation results revealed that the methyl anion is a possible intermediate species for the formation of ethane.

Graphical abstract: Highly efficient light-driven methane coupling under ambient conditions based on an integrated design of a photocatalytic system

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
10 May 2020
Accepted
22 Jun 2020
First published
22 Jun 2020

Green Chem., 2020,22, 4669-4675

Highly efficient light-driven methane coupling under ambient conditions based on an integrated design of a photocatalytic system

J. Lang, Y. Ma, X. Wu, Y. Jiang and Y. H. Hu, Green Chem., 2020, 22, 4669 DOI: 10.1039/D0GC01608J

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