Recently, Professor Xiong Yujie from the University of Science and Technology of China proposed a new type of photocatalytic hydrogen production mechanism, introducing the concept of coordination chemistry into organic nanomaterials, and the product exhibits a greatly improved photocatalytic hydrogen production under broad-spectrum illumination. performance.

Photocatalytic decomposition of water to produce hydrogen is a way to directly convert solar radiant energy into hydrogen energy, and is a new energy technology with great development potential. Photocatalytic hydrogen production technology is based on a mechanism of interaction between semiconductor strips. Its practical application is currently limited by catalyst cost and energy conversion performance. The broad-spectrum photocatalytic decomposition of water to produce hydrogen is a problem that the industry has been expecting to solve in recent years.

Based on the plasmon effect of noble metal nanostructures, Xiong Yujie’s group introduced the mechanism of thermal electron injection, resonance energy transfer and electromagnetic field enhancement in plasmonic effects into semiconductors through the formation of heterostructures of noble metals and semiconductors. In the process of transition between bands, a series of achievements have been made in the production of hydrogen by broad-spectrum photolysis. Although this technical approach has achieved significant improvements in photocatalytic performance, its use of precious metals is large and does not reduce the material cost of the catalyst. Therefore, based on low-cost organic semiconductor materials, researchers have proposed a new broad-spectrum photocatalytic mechanism by combining coordination chemistry with photocatalysis.

The research team borrowed the charge transfer transition between the metal center and the ligand molecule in the homogeneous coordination compound. The metal-ligand charge transfer transition can absorb light in an energy range below the transition between the bands, thereby forming a complementary broad-spectrum light absorption with the interband transition.

Researchers use organic semiconductor two-dimensional nanomaterials as macromolecular ligands, using the nitrogen atom sites to introduce less than one-thousandth of the platinum ions or cheaper copper ions to form nano-metal-organic semiconductors. Coordination structure. The extremely small amount of nano-coordination unit induces a charge transfer transition process that allows the catalyst product to undergo photocatalytic hydrogen production over a broad spectrum of sunlight.

The development of this technology approach will promote the application of organic semiconductor materials in photohydrolysis of hydrogen, and open up a new way of thinking for the design of broad-spectrum photocatalytic materials.