In the pursuit of the solar fuel production, the catalytic materials combining both efficiency and robustness in one species is the highest challenging for current renewable energy research. The ultimate practical applications requiring both features can only be ensured under this scheme based on the rational design of catalytic systems and meet the final criteria of applications for solar energy utilization. Nanomaterials and molecualr catalysts for solar energy conversion remain a long distance from the eventually use in energy production due to the catalytic activity loss. Here we present a novel concept that defines a metal oxide-based molecular semiconductor, which is a molecule in the size of nanometer range and of high efficiency in solar energy conversion via water splitting, (capable of both water reduction to produce dihydrogen and water oxidation to form dioxygen). In addition, the detailed mechanism of the solar splitting process was thoroughly studied on both molecular and semiconductor level.  The nature of the reported molecular semiconductor is expect to provide the insight of the efficient electron transfer between and among the redox species during the water splitting process. This work could potentially impact the rational design of nano-sized molecules of high stability and catalytic efficiency.

Novel molecular semi-conductor for efficient solar driven water splitting

247th National Meeting (2014)

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