Joule, 7, 2318–2334 (2023)
Thermal radiative catalysis: Selective dehydrogenation of ethane to ethylene by vibrationally excited carbon dioxide
Xue Ding1, Zeshu Zhang1, Junchuan Sun1, Joel Y. Y. Loh2, Dongxu Ji1, Jinghui Lu3, Chengyuan Liu3, Long Zhao3, 4, Wenxuan Liu1, 5, Junhua Zhao1, 5, Sanli Tang6, 7, Mahdi Safari2, Haiting Cai8, Wenguang Tu1, Nazir P. Kherani2 , 9, Zhixin Hu10, Geoffrey A. Ozin7, Zhigang Zou1 , 11 and Lu Wang1
1 School of Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518172, P.R. China.
2 Department of Electrical and Computing Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ONM5S 3G4, Canada.
3 National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230029, P.R. China.
4 School of Nuclear Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230027, P.R. China.
5 The Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518129, P.R. China.
6 Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, P.R. China.
7 Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto, 80 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3H6, Canada.
8 Institute of Industrial Catalysis, College of Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310014, P.R. China.
9 Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3E4, Canada.
10 Center for Joint Quantum Studies and Department of Physics, Institute of Science, Tianjin University, Tianjin, P.R. China.
11 National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, School of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, P.R. China.
* zouzhigang@cuhk.edu.cn, lwang@cuhk.edu.cn, g.ozin@utoronto.ca, zhixin.hu@tju.edu.cn
Abstract
The interaction between thermal radiation and reactant molecules in a conventional thermal catalytic reactor has been overlooked as an energy source. The electromagnetic thermal radiation from the heating modules can excite infrared vibrational modes of reactant molecules, facilitating inelastic collisions that selectively enhance reaction pathways. Herein, carbon dioxide enables thermal radiative catalytic ethane dehydrogenation and is found to boost the production of ethylene by 120% with a selectivity of about 100%.
