Preparation, characterization, evaluation and mechanistic study of organic polymer nano-photocatalysts for solar fuel production

Abstract

This review provides the guidelines and knowledge gained so far on current strategies used to prepare, optimize and investigate polymer nanoparticles for fuel production, highlighting the future directions of polymer nano-photocatalyst development.

Femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy investigation into the electron transfer mechanism in photocatalysis

“…Rapid economic and social development has led to a dramatic increase in fossil fuel consumption. 1,2 Over-dependence on fossil energy brings about two major challenges to the sustainable development of human society: energy crisis and environmental pollution. 3 To address these two issues, the development of renewable and environmentally friendly energy sources is significant.…”

Excited-state and charge-carrier dynamics in binary conjugated polymer dots towards efficient photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

“…To date, a vast number of conjugated polymers have been synthesized and developed in this field, 3–6 including conjugated microporous polymers (CMPs), 7 polymeric carbon nitrides (PCNs), 8 covalent organic frameworks (COFs), 9,10 covalent triazine-based frameworks (CTFs) 11 and linear polymers. 12,13…”

“…Up to today, a vast amount of conjugated polymers have been synthesized and developed in this field, [3][4][5][6] including conjugated microporous polymers (CMP) 7 , polymeric carbon nitrides (PCNs), 8 covalent organic frameworks (COFs), 9,10 covalent triazine-based frame works (CTFs) 11 and linear polymers. [12][13] Linear polymer formed nanoparticles (NPs) with less than 100 nm, also called polymer dots (Pdots) dispersed in aqueous solution has been used in wide applications in the last decades, 14 from biomedical to organic photovoltaic (OPV) applications; 15,16 in the latter case, it allows to replace the toxic organic solvents for environmentally-friendly casting. 17 Water dispersed Pdots for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution was first introduced in 2016 by our group, hydrogen evolution results showed almost 5 orders of magnitude higher than the conventional bulk system.…”

Sub-4 nm mapping of donor–acceptor organic semiconductor nanoparticle composition

“…In this alternate application, the nanoparticles can be used in water-based colloidal form, meaning the additional fabrication step of coating the nanoparticles to form a thin solid film is not necessary. 14 Non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs) have overtaken fullerene acceptors in organic photovoltaics and photocatalysis, [15][16][17][18][19] both BHJ and nanoparticulate, and the ability to map the morphology accurately is required for optimising structure-function relationships in device applications. In this report, we selected to study the new high performance donor-acceptor material systems PTzBI-Si:N2200 and PTQ10:IDIC, and the more well-known long-standing system TQ1:PC 71 BM, a fullerene containing system.…”