Sulfurous streams are considered of negative or nil value and thus are required to be processed. Herein methods, apparatus, and materials are disclosed to upcycle a sulfurous streams to nitrous streams with the use of a carrier materials with a variable stoichiometry comprised of sulfoxynitride species and energy stimuli. An example of an effluent nitrous stream includes ammonia. Further methods disclose how to upcycle an abundant nitrous stream to a subsequent nitrous stream such as nitrous oxides with the help of a carrier material and an ionic conductor.

A photocatalytic reaction system by collecting sunlight, the system including: a light collector, a light conduction device, and a photoreactor. A transparent protective cover is disposed on the top of a housing of the light collector. A light-collecting convex lens group is disposed beneath the protective cover in the transmission direction of the sunlight. The housing of the light collector is provided with a solar radiation measuring device. An azimuthal main shaft and the pitch main shaft are separately provided with the servo motors and are rotatable in relation to each other by tracking the sunlight under the drive of the separate servo motors. The sunlight collected by the light-collecting convex lens group is converged into a convergent light when passing through the light conduction device and the convergent light is directed to the photoreactor. The photoreactor functions to transmit full-spectrum rays of sunlight.

A feed stream including hydrogen sulfide is heated to a preheat temperature. At least a portion of the hydrogen sulfide in the feed stream is converted into hydrogen and sulfur to form a mixed product stream including the hydrogen, the sulfur, and a remaining, unconverted portion of the hydrogen sulfide. The preheat temperature is a temperature that is sufficiently hot to maintain a desired reaction temperature while converting at least the portion of the hydrogen sulfide in the feed stream into hydrogen and sulfur. At least a portion of the mixed product stream is cooled to a specified temperature at which recombination of the hydrogen and the sulfur into hydrogen sulfide is prevented. Cooling at least the portion of the mixed product stream includes condensing at least a portion of the sulfur to form a sulfur stream.

Processes of photocatalytically generating molecular hydrogen (H.sub.2) and systems for carrying out the processes. Liquid water is contacted with an amount of a ID and/or 2D carbon-doped nanofilament-based photocatalyst material composition and a hole scavenger chemical, optionally under an inert gas purge, at temperature of 100 C. or less, generating gaseous molecular hydrogen by irradiating the liquid water, the hole scavenger chemical, and the photocatalyst for about 1 to 300 hours with at least one sun illumination (UV-Vis light (250-650 nm)).

A method of producing H.sub.2 may include passing a hydrocarbon feed into a reactor, wherein the hydrocarbon feed comprises at least 50 mol. % methane. The method may also include contacting the methane with a catalyst in the reactor to form a product comprising H.sub.2. The catalyst may comprise a support and one or more catalytically-active metals. At least 99 wt. % of the one or more catalytically-active metals may be present in the catalyst as single-atoms, based on a total weight of the one or more catalytically-active metals in the catalyst.