Sustainable methane utilization technology via photocatalytic halogenation with alkali halides.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 36918590.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-36977-0 and PMC identifier 10014990.
- 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
Methyl halides are versatile platform molecules, which have been widely adopted as precursors for producing value-added chemicals and fuels. Despite their high importance, the green and economical synthesis of the methyl halides remains challenging. Here we demonstrate sustainable and efficient photocatalytic methane halogenation for methyl halide production over copper-doped titania using alkali halides as a widely available and noncorrosive halogenation agent. This approach affords a methyl halide production rate of up to 0.61 mmol h<sup>-1</sup> m<sup>-2</sup> for chloromethane or 1.08 mmol h<sup>-1</sup> m<sup>-2</sup> for bromomethane with a stability of 28 h, which are further proven transformable to methanol and pharmaceutical intermediates. Furthermore, we demonstrate that such a reaction can also operate solely using seawater and methane as resources, showing its high practicability as general technology for offshore methane exploitation. This work opens an avenue for the sustainable utilization of methane from various resources and toward designated applications.