A Pyridine Anchoring Strategy for Dye‐Sensitized Photocatalysis

Abstract

Anchoring groups play an important role in the assembly of functional molecules onto semiconductor substrates for the purpose of dye‐sensitized photocatalysis. In addition to directly influencing the adsorption stability, the anchoring group significantly impacts the efficiency of electron or hole injection into the substrate, which is a crucial step of interfacial photocatalytic reactions. Most reported dye‐sensitized photocatalytic systems, including semiconductor nanoparticles and photoelectrochemical cells, are prepared using the carboxylic or phosphonic anchors. The systems prepared with these conventional anchors usually suffer from low adsorption stability in aqueous media. Alternatively, pyridine has emerged as an anchoring group of photosensitizers and molecular catalysts in the construction of photocatalytic systems. The resulting semiconductor nanoparticles and photoelectrodes show superior adsorption stability in practice in aqueous media, providing a simple and efficient way to sensitize the metal or metal oxide substrate. This review focuses especially on the recent advances of such a pyridine anchoring strategy in the assembly of photosensitizers and molecular catalysts for photocatalytic applications, in particular photocatalytic water oxidation, reduction, and splitting. The further exploration and understanding of the pyridine‐anchoring method are believed to boost the development of advanced dye‐sensitized photocatalytic devices and technologies.