Methanol steam reforming for hydrogen production driven by an atomically precise Cu catalyst.

Plasmon-induced hot-electron transfer from metal nanostructures is being intensely pursed in current photocatalytic research, however it remains elusive whether molecular-like metal clusters with excitonic behavior can be used as light-harvesting materials in solar energy utilization such as photocatalytic methanol steam reforming. In this work, we report an atomically precise Cu₁₃ cluster protected by dual ligands of thiolate and phosphine that can be viewed as the assembly of one top Cu atom and three Cu₄ tetrahedra. The Cu₁₃H₁₀(SR)₃(PR' ₃)₇ (SR = 2,4-dichlorobenzenethiol, PR' ₃ = P(4-FC₆H₄)₃) cluster can give rise to highly efficient light-driven activity for methanol steam reforming toward H₂ production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]