Visible-light-driven non-oxidative dehydrogenation of alkanes at ambient conditions

Lili Zhang, Le Liu, Ziye Pan, Rui Zhang, Zhuoyang Gao, Guangming Wang, Keke Huang, Xiaoyue Mu, Fuquan Bai, Yan Wang, Wei Zhang, Zhonghua Cui and Lu Li ()
Additional contact information
Lili Zhang: Jilin University
Le Liu: Jilin University
Ziye Pan: Jilin University
Rui Zhang: Jilin University
Zhuoyang Gao: Jilin University
Guangming Wang: Jilin University
Keke Huang: Jilin University
Xiaoyue Mu: Jilin University
Fuquan Bai: Jilin University
Yan Wang: Jilin University
Wei Zhang: Jilin University
Zhonghua Cui: Jilin University
Lu Li: Jilin University

Nature Energy, 2022, vol. 7, issue 11, 1042-1051

Abstract: Abstract Direct non-oxidative dehydrogenation of alkanes produces useful carbon feedstocks and hydrogen fuel. However, breaking the C–H bonds in alkanes typically requires high temperature, stoichiometric oxidants or high-energy ultraviolet light; processes that operate under milder conditions are attractive but tend to have poor efficiency. Here we report Pt/black TiO2 photocatalysts in which Pt species are close to each other but not directly bonded, exhibiting high performance for alkane dehydrogenation in visible to near-infrared light at room temperature. For cyclohexane dehydrogenation, the turnover number for H2 production exceeded 100,000 without any deactivation over 80 reaction cycles, far beyond thermal reactions. For methane, 8.2% conversion was achieved with 65% selectivity to propane, rather than the more common ethane. We propose that methane undergoes intramolecular dehydrogenation to produce a methylene intermediate. For C2+ alkanes, fast dehydrogenation (up to 1,440 µmol g−1 h−1) to the corresponding olefins was realized. Distinct from isolated Pt+ monomers, the collections of Pt+ monomers give better photocatalytic activity and selectivity.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01127-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natene:v:7:y:2022:i:11:d:10.1038_s41560-022-01127-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nenergy/

DOI: 10.1038/s41560-022-01127-1

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Energy is currently edited by Fouad Khan

More articles in Nature Energy from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().