γ‐Ray Driven Aqueous‐Phase Methane Conversions into Complex Molecules up to Glycine

Fundamental understanding of initial evolutions of molecules in the universe is of great interest and importance. CH 4 is one of the abundant simple molecules in the universe. Herein we report γ‐ray, high‐energy photons commonly existing in cosmic rays and unstable isotope decay, as an external energy to efficiently drives aqueous‐phase CH 4 conversions to various products with the presence of oxygen at room temperature. Glycine also forms with an additional introduction of ammonia. Both CH 4 conversions and product distributions are modified by solid granules, and a CH 3 COOH selectivity as high as 82 % is obtained when SiO 2 is added. Our results point to γ‐ray driven aqueous‐phase CH 4 conversions as a likely formation network of initial complex organic compounds in the universe and offer an alternative strategy for efficiently utilizing CH 4 as the carbon source to produce value‐added products at mild conditions, a long‐standing challenging task in heterogeneous catalysis.