posted on 2020-03-19, 15:35authored byHyun-Jun Lee, Jaekwan Kim, Abasi Abudulimu, Juan Cabanillas-Gonzalez, Paramjyothi C. Nandajan, Johannes Gierschner, Larry Lüer, Soo Young Park
Self-assembled
molecules for outstanding hydrogen evolution rate
and durability should promise practical water splitting due to the
versatile visible light absorption, low production cost, and ease
of control. Here, we adapted an amphiphilic molecule as a building
block for efficient small molecule based self-assembled photocatalyst
for hydrogen evolution from water. The self-assembled molecules with
platinum cocatalyst showed outstanding performance (turnover number
∼27000) virtually comparable to the state-of-the-art metal
oxide based photocatalysts with catalytic activity extending over
days. Transient absorption studies in combination with quantum chemical
calculations revealed that elaborate excited state engineering of
the molecules resulted in such high performance of hydrogen evolution
from water. This study shows that the self-assembled amphiphilic molecules
could pave the way to more economical and reproducible production
of hydrogen from water.