Packing-induced selectivity switching in molecular nanoparticle photocatalysts for hydrogen and hydrogen peroxide production

Phenoxazine-based small molecule heterojunction nanoparticles for photocatalytic hydrogen production

“…S6b, ESI†). The overall rates of H 2 production for designed molecular heterojunction NPs were among the most efficient small organic molecule based photocatalysts, 5,6,18,19 and even higher than those observed for many of the polymer-based heterojunction NPs, 16,17,26,27 and inorganic photocatalysts. 28 Having molecular donor and molecular acceptor that both can form crystalline structures, results in enhanced mixing, structure ordering and thus charge delocalization.…”

“…4,7,16,17 Recently, several works used small molecule NPs that showed impressive external quantum efficiencies even in the absence of polymeric donors. 5,6,[18][19][20] Small molecules offer highly tunable molecular structure, band gap and energy levels. And in contrast to most polymers, small molecules demonstrated the ability to form favorable morphology with highly crystalline networks that may offer efficient generation of free carriers, and thus suppressed recombination rates.…”

“…The field of photocatalysis has largely expanded in solar fuel research in the last few years, and now organic photocatalysts are of growing interest due to their biocompatibility and ability to work with various (co-)catalysts to generate a wide range of valuable products from water, CO 2 and sunlight, e.g. H 2 , 1–8 H 2 O 2 , 9–11 formate, 9 poly-3-hydroxybutyrate, 12 acetate, 13 2-oxobutyrate, 14 etc.…”

Regulation of Redox Molecular Junctions in Covalent Organic Frameworks for H2O2 Photosynthesis Coupled with Biomass Valorization

“…During the detailed mechanistic process, the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and water oxidation reaction (WOR) are two vital half reactions that can simultaneously produce H 2 O 2 driven by photocatalysts [5] . However, the light‐driven 2 e − WOR pathway is not easy to achieve due to the uphill thermodynamics (1.76 V versus normalized hydrogen electrode, NHE) when compared with that of ORR [6] . In general, the balance between WOR and ORR is very important for the production of H 2 O 2 as they can synergistically determine the catalytic kinetics and efficiency [7a] .…”

Mechanistic Insights into the Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production of Y5 and Y6 Nanoparticles

“…Dolan et al tested Y6 NPs for photocatalytic hydrogen production and highlighted the impact of surfactants for their application . In addition, molecular engineering of small-molecule photocatalysts showed significantly improved photocatalytic hydrogen production, suggesting satisfactory charge separation in small-molecule NPs. − However, understanding the photophysical properties, particularly excitonic and charge separation processes in small-molecule NPs, is necessary for new molecular photocatalyst design. Excitonic effects and important excitonic processes set limitations to the overall photocatalytic quantum yield.…”