Various efforts have been carried out to convert methane to more useful chemicals and hydrogen. However, due to its high stability, high energy is usually consumed for its conversion, which still remains as a problem to be solved. Recently, photocatalysis has been proposed to be one of the answers to break the thermodynamic barrier. This tutorial review provides a brief history about developments in the methane conversion and specially highlights the developments in the photocatalytic conversion of methane, such as methane coupling and methane conversion with other molecules.

A new synthetic method to prepare tantalum(V) nitride (Ta₃N₅) nanoparticles from a mesoporous carbon nitride template is proposed; the Ta₃N₅ has a high surface area, a low density of defect sites, and shows one magnitude higher activity than the bulk Ta₃N₅ for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution under visible light irradiation.

Highly dispersed cerium oxide species on silica and alumina, which mainly exist as Ce(III) species, promote non-oxidative direct methane coupling photocatalytically around room temperature, while Ce(IV) species as CeO₂ particles do not behave as a catalyst for this reaction.