Selective photocatalytic conversion of methane into carbon monoxide over zinc-heteropolyacid-titania nanocomposites.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 30741940.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-08525-2 and PMC identifier 6370819.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Chemical utilization of vast fossil and renewable feedstocks of methane remains one of the most important challenges of modern chemistry. Herein, we report direct and selective methane photocatalytic oxidation at ambient conditions into carbon monoxide, which is an important chemical intermediate and a platform molecule. The composite catalysts on the basis of zinc, tungstophosphoric acid and titania exhibit exceptional performance in this reaction, high carbon monoxide selectivity and quantum efficiency of 7.1% at 362 nm. In-situ Fourier transform infrared and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy suggest that the catalytic performance can be attributed to zinc species highly dispersed on tungstophosphoric acid /titania, which undergo reduction and oxidation cycles during the reaction according to the Mars-van Krevelen sequence. The reaction proceeds via intermediate formation of surface methyl carbonates.