A Place in the Sun for Artificial Photosynthesis?

Abstract

Artificial photosynthesis enables the possibility of generating clean, sustainable, and large-scale energy resources through water splitting and renewable chemical fuel syntheses. With several decades of research, the scientific community still encounters great academic and technological challenges to efficiently generate hydrogen from water with sunlight at large scale and low cost. Recent developments based on novel system designs have led to significant advances in the fundamental understanding of light-induced charge dynamics and related interfacial chemical reactions and efficiencies. This Review provides a thorough overview of the very recent progress in new materials and photoelectrochemical system designs, surface engineering strategies, and efficient new cocatalysts for hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions (HER and OER) as well as advanced spectroscopic studies related to photogenerated charge dynamics and interfacial electronic structure. A focus is given on newly developed strategies to improve the rate-determining steps, as well as emerging approaches for surface modifications, surface reaction dynamics, and optimal device structure design from a charge transfer viewpoint. Finally, a promising new system is being proposed and described, derived from the overall understanding, mechanisms, and concepts reported in the literature for efficient and stable water-splitting systems.

Armed by Asp? C-terminal carboxylate in a Dap-branched peptide and consequences in the binding of CuII and electrocatalytic water oxidation

“…[1][2][3][4] This research is driven by the aim of producing H 2 as part of envisioned renewable energy storage or articial photosynthesis systems. [4][5][6][7][8][9] In such systems electrolytic water splitting can be the source of H 2 , if both half-cell reactions are accelerated to a reasonable rate by an electrocatalyst. According to the general opinion the bottleneck of the H 2 O / H 2 + 0.5O 2 process is the oxygen evolving reaction (OER, or water oxidation), because of the demanding conditions, e.g., extreme pH and/or high anodic polarization of the working electrode that are required for the transfer of 4e À and 4H + in one catalytic cycle.…”

Electronic Structure of Carotenoids in Natural and Artificial Photosynthesis

“…It is one of the principal processes in nature and it is fundamental for life existence. Solar energy conversion to chemical fuels using green methodologies may be approached with photosynthesis [1] since this natural process is the main user of solar energy in our planet. This natural process uses effectively the largest exploitable renewable energy resource.…”

“…Solar energy provides our planet with more energy per hour than the total energy consumed by human activities in 1 year. In other words, direct conversion of solar energy into chemical fuels represents an optimal approach to address the globally growing energy demand in a sustainable way [1][2]. Photosynthesis if reproduced may address a lot of our environmental problems derived from energy conversion.…”

“…In this way, mimicking photosynthesis has become a subject of great interest in the scientific world, and this global research trend has given origin to a recently created term, artificial photosynthesis [1][2][3]. This concept refers to a chemical process that replicates the natural process of photosynthesis; it mainly studies the process to convert sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide into carbohydrates and oxygen.…”

Metal‐Free Flexible Protonated g‐C3N4/Carbon Dots Photoanode for Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting

“…[1,2] Due to their superior properties of transparency and conductivity, transparent conductive oxide (TCO) layers (such as In 2 O 3 , ZnO or SnO 2 films) deposited on glass are widely used as substrates for PEC and photovoltaic devices. The pCN/C dots photoanode gives an increased anodic photocurrent of 38 mA/cm 2 at 1 V vs. RHE under illumination with simulated one sun conditions, which is about 3 times higher than that of the pristine pCN.…”