Promoted solar-driven dry reforming of methane with Pt/mesoporous-TiO₂ photo-thermal synergistic catalyst: Performance and mechanism study

Coupling the concept of photo-thermal catalysis is a promising strategy for solar driven DRM reaction. However, highly efficient photo-thermal catalyst and its catalytic reaction mechanism are still barren. Therefore, a highly efficient Pt/mesoporous TiO₂ photo-thermal catalyst is reported in this work, and reaction mechanism is investigated through XRD, XPS, Raman, UV–vis–nir, PL and in situ DRIFTS. It is found that Pt active sites and semiconductor TiO₂ could work together with SPR and photoelectric effects to enhance adsorption and activation of CH₄ and CO₂, as well as the conversions of intermediate products (CH_x, COO^–, –OH etc.). Besides, the formation rates of CO and H₂ are 281.0 and 178.6 mmol·gcat⁻¹·h⁻¹ respectively under 500 °C and 3.1 W·m⁻² light irradiation intensity, which are 1.58 and 1.74 times higher than those under dark conditions. The activities of the prepared Pt/mesoporous-TiO₂ catalyst performs better than recently published reports, showing great potential in photo-thermal chemical conversions.