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Developing Photosensitizer-Cobaloxime Hybrids for Solar-Driven H2 Production in Aqueous Aerobic Conditions
Published on: October 5, 2019
Visible light driven water splitting in a molecular device with unprecedentedly high photocurrent density
Yan Gao1, Xin Ding, Jianhui Liu
1State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals, Dalian University of Technology, DUT-KTH Joint Education and Research Center on Molecular Devices, Dalian 116024, China. dr.gaoyan@dlut.edu.cn
Abstract:
A molecular water oxidation catalyst (2) has been synthesized and immobilized together with a molecular photosensitizer (1) on nanostructured TiO2 particles on FTO conducting glass, forming a photoactive anode (TiO2(1+2)). By using the TiO2(1+2) as working electrode in a three-electrode photoelectrochemical cell (PEC), visible light driven water splitting has been successfully demonstrated in a phosphate buffer solution (pH 6.8), with oxygen and hydrogen bubbles evolved respectively from the working electrode and counter electrode. By applying 0.2 V external bias vs NHE, a high photocurrent density of more than 1.7 mA·cm(-2) has been achieved. This value is higher than any PEC devices with molecular components reported in literature.
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