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Updated: Nov 18, 2025

Experimental Methods for Efficient Solar Hydrogen Production in Microgravity Environment
Published on: December 3, 2019
Ambient sunlight-driven photothermal methanol dehydrogenation for syngas production with 32.9 % solar-to-hydrogen
Xianhua Bai1, Dachao Yuan2, Yaguang Li1
1Hebei Key Lab of Optic-electronic Information and Materials, The College of Physics Science and Technology, Institute of Life Science and Green Development, Hebei University, Baoding 071002, P. R. China.
Abstract:
Methanol dehydrogenation is an efficient way to produce syngas with high quality. The current efficiency of sunlight-driven methanol dehydrogenation is poor, which is limited by the lack of excellent catalysts and effective methods to convert sunlight into chemicals. Here, we show that atomically substitutional Pt-doped in CeO2 nanosheets (Pts-CeO2) exhibit excellent methanol dehydrogenation activity with 500-hr level catalytic stability, 11 times higher than that of Pt nanoparticles/CeO2. Further, we introduce a photothermal conversion device to heat Pts-CeO2 up to 299°C under 1 sun irradiation owning to efficient full sunlight absorption and low heat dissipation, thus achieving an extraordinarily high methanol dehydrogenation performance with a 481.1 mmol g-1 h-1 of H2 production rate and a high solar-to-hydrogen (STH) efficiency of 32.9%. Our method represents another progress for ambient sunlight-driven stable and active methanol dehydrogenation technology.
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