High-efficient and Low-cost H₂ Production by Solar-driven Photo-thermo-reforming of Methanol with CuO Catalyst

Solar-driven methanol reforming is recognized as an effective route for hydrogen production considering economic and technological feasibility. However, the currently-available photo-reforming and thermo-reforming suffer from low efficiency and high-cost, respectively. Here, we propose a high-efficient and low-cost reaction system for H2 production by solar-driven photo-thermo-reforming of methanol to solve this problem with noble-metal-free catalyst of CuO supported on SiO₂ filter. In this system, CuO exhibits excellent hydrogen production performance (100.33 mmol g^-1 h^-1), and the solar-to-hydrogen efficiency can reach up to 1.85% with 100 mg commercial CuO catalyst. The remarkable performance is attributed to the photo-thermo-catalytic synergism, which is revealed as a self-promoting cycle triggered by in-situ photo reduction of CuO into element Cu and enhanced by the thermally Local Surface Plasmon Resonance (LSPR) effect of element Cu. We hope our work could bring forward to an alternative novel idea for solar-driven H₂ harvesting in the future.