Photocatalysis offers a mechanism to harness the sun’s energy and store it in chemical bonds, creating new fuels. This offers a probable route to lessen the dependence on fossil fuels and reduce the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. While there are many known fuel-forming catalysts based on first-row transition metals, there are few examples of earth-abundant photosensitizers. Metal complexes of dipyrromethene (dipyrrin) ligands have potential as sensitizers for photocatalysis. These ligands possess the intense visible absorption properties of the related porphyrins, while being more synthetically accessible. Two zinc dipyrrin derivatives have been synthesized and characterized and they meet the requirements of an ideal sensitizer. The sensitizers have been used for photocatalytic reduction of CO2 to CO. This presentation will focus on optimizing the photocatalysis reaction to maximize the yield of CO and reaction turnover numbers.

Photocatalytic reduction of CO2 using zinc photosensitizers

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