Ultrabroadband plasmon driving selective photoreforming of methanol under ambient conditions.

ABSTRACT: Liquid methanol has the potential to be the hydrogen energy carrier and storage medium for the future green economy. However, there are still many challenges before zero-emission, affordable molecular H₂ can be extracted from methanol with high performance. Here, we present noble-metal-free Cu-WC/W plasmonic nanohybrids which exhibit unsurpassed solar H₂ extraction efficiency from pure methanol of 2,176.7 µmol g^-1 h^-1 at room temperature and normal pressure. Macro-to-micro experiments and simulations unveil that local reaction microenvironments are generated by the coperturbation of WC/W's lattice strain and infrared-plasmonic electric field. It enables spontaneous but selective zero-emission reaction pathways. Such microenvironments are found to be highly cooperative with solar-broadband-plasmon-excited charge carriers flowing from Cu to WC surfaces for efficient stable CH₃OH plasmonic reforming with C₃-dominated liquid products and 100% selective gaseous H₂. Such high efficiency, without any CO_x emission, can be sustained for over a thousand-hour operation without obvious degradation.

SUBMITTER: Uddin N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9934055 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature