Research Director

Toshiki Sugimoto

National Institutes of Natural Sciences
Institute for Molecular Science
Associate Professor
website

Outline

The goal of this study is to propose and demonstrate a new concept of interface engineering for developing active photocatalyst surfaces that effectively convert methane and water into methanol. Target reaction fields are surfaces of wide-gap and nano-particulate transition-metal-oxide semiconductors where photo-generated electrons and holes have enough energy to redox both methane and water. Operando spectroscopy will be conducted for various photocatalysts that have many kinds of low-coordinated metal cations at surfaces as a function of chemical potential of methane and water in the gas phase.