Formaldehyde is an important intermediate product in the catalytic conversion of methanol to olefins (MTO). Here we show that formaldehyde is present during MTO with an average concentration of ~0.2 C% across the ZSM-5 catalyst bed up to a MeOH conversion of 70%. It condenses with acetic acid or methyl acetate, the carbonylation product of MeOH and DME, into unsaturated carboxylate or carboxylic acid, which decarboxylates into the first olefin. By tracing its reaction pathways of 13 C-labeled formaldehyde, it is shown that formaldehyde reacts with alkenes via Prins reaction into dienes and finally to aromatics. Because its rate is one order of magnitude higher than that of hydrogen transfer between alkenes on ZSM-5, the Prins reaction is concluded to be the major reaction route from formaldehyde to produce dienes and aromatics. In consequence, formaldehyde increases the yield of ethene by enhancing the contribution of aromatic cycle.

Photocatalytic hydrogen evolution from methanol is a standard test reaction for photocatalyst materials. Surprisingly, the exact chemical mechanism is still widely discussed in the literature. In order to disentangle photochemical from thermal reaction steps and gain insights on the atomic level, we use a Pt cluster-loaded TiO2(110) photocatalyst in very well-defined environments. Using Auger electron spectroscopy, temperature-programmed desorption/reaction, isotopic labeling, and isothermal photoreactions, it is possible to identify the surface species present on the catalyst under photocatalytic conditions. Furthermore, an initial conditioning of the photocatalyst is observed and attributed to thermal dehydrogenation of methanol to CO species on the cluster. The analysis of the isothermal photoreactions reveals that the photo-oxidation kinetics are not significantly affected by cocatalyst loading. The observed conversion and product distribution of formaldehyde and methyl formate can be rationalized with kinetic parameters gained from the bare TiO2(110) crystal. The work leads to a detailed mechanistic understanding of the surface species and paves the way for an educated microkinetic modeling approach, which may be extended to a variety of noble metal cocatalysts and other TiO2 modifications.

According to textbooks, tertiary alcohols are inert towards oxidation. The photocatalysis of tertiary alcohols under highly defined vacuum conditions on a titania single crystal reveals unexpected and new reactions, which can be described as disproportionation into an alkane and the respective ketone. In contrast to primary and secondary alcohols, in tertiary alcohols the absence of an α‐H leads to a C−C‐bond cleavage instead of the common abstraction of hydrogen. Surprisingly, bonds to methyl groups are not cleaved when the alcohol exhibits longer alkyl chains in the α‐position to the hydroxyl group. The presence of platinum loadings not only increases the reaction rate but also opens up a new reaction channel: the formation of molecular hydrogen and a long‐chain alkane resulting from recombination of two alkyl moieties. This work demonstrates that new synthetic routes may become possible by introducing photocatalytic reaction steps in which the co‐catalysts may also play a decisive role.

Iron oxides (FeOx) are among the most common support materials utilized in single atom catalysis. The support is nominally Fe2O3, but strongly reductive treatments are usually applied to activate the as‐synthesized catalyst prior to use. Here, Rh adsorption and incorporation on the (11true¯02) surface of hematite (α‐Fe2O3) are studied, which switches from a stoichiometric (1 × 1) termination to a reduced (2 × 1) reconstruction in reducing conditions. Rh atoms form clusters at room temperature on both surface terminations, but Rh atoms incorporate into the support lattice as isolated atoms upon annealing above 400 °C. Under mildly oxidizing conditions, the incorporation process is so strongly favored that even large Rh clusters containing hundreds of atoms dissolve into the surface. Based on a combination of low‐energy ion scattering (LEIS), X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) data, as well as density functional theory (DFT), it is concluded that the Rh atoms are stabilized in the immediate subsurface, rather than the surface layer.

In heterogeneous photocatalysis, noble metals such as Au, Pt, or Pd are most commonly used as co-catalysts to facilitate H2 evolution, yet their costs are problematic for applications on a...