Engineering surface lattice hydroxyl groups toward highly efficient photocatalytic methane coupling

Zili Ma; Yihong Chen; Chao Gao; Yujie Xiong

doi:10.1039/d3cc04645a

Engineering surface lattice hydroxyl groups toward highly efficient photocatalytic methane coupling

Chem Commun (Camb). 2024 Jan 25;60(9):1132-1135. doi: 10.1039/d3cc04645a.

Authors

Zili Ma¹, Yihong Chen¹, Chao Gao¹, Yujie Xiong^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, School of Chemistry and Materials Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China. yjxiong@ustc.edu.cn.
² Institute of Energy, Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center, 350 Shushanhu Road, Hefei, Anhui 230031, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Functional Molecular Solids, Ministry of Education, Anhui Engineering Research Center of Carbon Neutrality, College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Anhui Normal University, Wuhu, Anhui 241000, China.

PMID: 38186083
DOI: 10.1039/d3cc04645a

Abstract

Nb₃O₇(OH) containing abundant surface lattice hydroxyl groups, combining with loaded Au nanoparticles as the cocatalyst, was employed as a photocatalyst enabling highly efficient photocatalytic CH₄ coupling to C₂H₆ under mild conditions. In situ spectroscopy technique revealed that the surface lattice hydroxyl groups play a vital role in promoting the activation of CH₄ to produce the methoxy intermediates, contributing to significantly enhanced catalytic performance for CH₄ conversion.