Methanol-Water Interaction in Photocatalytic Methanol Reforming ─ An Operando NMR Study

Abstract

In this work, an operando NMR method was used to investigate the interaction between water and methanol in photocatalytic methanol reforming process in a real solid-liquid environment. The existence of hydrogen bonding and proton exchange between water and methanol were proven. The experimental results demonstrated that, the interaction between methanol and water is affected by the type of catalyst, reaction temperature and light irradiation, which consequently influences the methanol reforming efficiency. It was also shown that selection of the appropriate temperature and catalyst could improve methanol reforming efficiency.

Keywords

• operando nuclear magnetic resonance (nmr)
• methanol reforming
• photocatalysis
• liquid-state nuclear magnetic resonance