Photocatalyst Z-scheme system composed of a linear conjugated polymer and BiVO₄ for overall water splitting under visible light

Abstract

A Z-scheme of a linear conjugated polymer photocatalyst and a metal oxide is able to facilitate overall water splitting without non-scalable sacrificial reagents showing potential for sustainable hydrogen production.

Water Oxidation with Cobalt‐Loaded Linear Conjugated Polymer Photocatalysts

“…Transient absorption (TA) spectroscopy was used to study the effect of the cobalt co‐catalyst and Ag + scavenger on the dynamics of the photogenerated charge carriers of P10. The TA spectra of P10 with cobalt present in pure water following 400 nm excitation (Figure a) showed the same behavior as observed previously for P10 in the absence of cobalt (Supporting Information, Figure S19). The broad negative signal from <465 to 705 nm was previously assigned to stimulated emission with the excited state absorption from 705 to >810 nm due to singlet exciton formation.…”

Energy Platform for Directed Charge Transfer in the Cascade Z‐Scheme Heterojunction: CO2 Photoreduction without a Cocatalyst

“…Such artificial Z‐Scheme heterostructures (from indirect to direct) have been studied for CO 2 reduction, water splitting, nitrogen fixation, and so on. [ 13 , 14 , 15 ] However, solar to fuel conversion efficiency is still very moderate to compete with conventional fuel production technologies. Thus, advanced strategies are highly required to design and fabricate a challenging Z‐Scheme heterojunction nanocomposite to enhance efficiency by improving charge separation and transfer.…”

Acetylene-linked conjugated polymers for sacrificial photocatalytic hydrogen evolution from water

“…[22][23][24][25][26] Recently, organic materials have also been reported to perform water oxidation 24,27 and even overall water splitting. [28][29][30] Due to the diversity of monomers and different polymerization routes, many different polymer photocatalysts have been synthesized, 31 but their performance as photocatalysts for hydrogen evolution from water is still lower than for the best inorganic semiconductors. 32 In previous work, a large series of conjugated polymers was synthesized by Suzuki-Miyaura polycondensation and tested as hydrogen production photocatalysts using a high-throughput workflow, showing that the screening allows for the accelerated discovery of high performance photocatalysts.…”