The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Ebbe Nordlander. Portrait.

Ebbe Nordlander

Professor

Ebbe Nordlander. Portrait.

Electron Transfer Mediated by Iron Carbonyl Clusters Enhance Light-Driven Hydrogen Evolution in Water by Quantum Dots

Author

  • Chuanshuai Li
  • Ahibur Rahaman
  • Weihua Lin
  • Hassan Mourad
  • Jie Meng
  • Alireza Honarfar
  • Mohamed Abdellah
  • Meiyuan Guo
  • Michael G. Richmond
  • Kaibo Zheng
  • Ebbe Nordlander
Show all

Summary, in English

Photocatalytic water splitting has become a promising strategy for converting solar energy into clean and carbon-neutral solar fuels in a low-cost and environmentally benign way. Hydrogen gas is such a potential solar fuel/energy carrier. In a classical artificial photosynthetic system, a photosensitizer is generally associated with a co-catalyst to convert photogenerated charge into (a) chemical bond(s). In the present study, assemblies consisting of CdSe quantum dots that are coupled with one of two molecular complexes/catalysts, that is, [Fe2S2(CO)6] or [Fe3Te2(CO)9], using an interface-directed approach, have been tested as catalytic systems for hydrogen production in aqueous solution/organic solution. In the presence of ascorbic acid as a sacrificial electron donor and proton source, these assemblies exhibit enhanced activities for the rate of hydrogen production under visible light irradiation for 8 h in aqueous solution at pH 4.0 with up to 110 μmol of H2 per mg of assembly, almost 8.5 times that of pure CdSe quantum dots under the same conditions. Transient absorption and time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopies have been used to investigate the charge carrier transfer dynamics in the quantum dot/iron carbonyl cluster assemblies. The spectroscopic results indicate that effective electron transfer from the molecular iron complex to the valence band of the excited CdSe quantum dots significantly inhibits the recombination of photogenerated charge carriers, boosting the photocatalytic activity for hydrogen generation; that is, the iron clusters function as effective intermediaries for electron transfer from the sacrificial electron donor to the valence band of the quantum dots.

Department/s

  • Chemical Physics
  • NanoLund: Centre for Nanoscience

Publishing year

2020-06-19

Language

English

Pages

3252-3260

Publication/Series

ChemSusChem

Volume

13

Issue

12

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Topic

  • Physical Chemistry (including Surface- and Colloid Chemistry)

Keywords

  • electron transfer
  • iron carbonyl cluster
  • photoluminescence spectroscopy
  • proton reduction
  • quantum dot

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1864-5631