2025 AIChE Annual Meeting

Photocatalytic Non-Oxidative Coupling of Methane

Methane (CH₄), an abundant yet underutilized natural resource, represents one of the upcoming hurdles in the pursuit of sustainable energy and climate solutions. Photocatalysis offers an alternative reaction pathway, enabling methane activation under milder conditions with higher product selectivity. This project explored gold modified titanium dioxide (Au-TiO2) catalysts for non-oxidative coupling of methane to ethane. Variables including gold loading, calcination temperature, and TiO₂ phase were studied to facilitate methane activation while minimizing undesirable byproduct formation. Preliminary results confirmed that catalytic performances, especially ethane yield and product selectivity is related to gold loading. Au-TiO2 catalyst with 1.0 weight% gold showed the highest selectivity of products, reaching and maintaining over 90% selectivity over a 7-hour test period. This project showed that the synergy between gold and titanium dioxide plays an important role in photocatalytic methane conversion.