Nanomaterials with potential for environmentally friendly hydrogen production

In an article in the journal Energy and Environmental Science, researchers from Uppsala University, Sweden, present a type of low-cost and environmental-friendly organic polymer nano-material as photocatalysts for hydrogen generation, and propose the working mechanism of the photocatalytic reactive site.

Development of photocatalysts forlight driven hydrogen generation from water is an ideal way to convert and store solar energy. Due to limited light absorption, high-cost and potential metal-pollutant from inorganic catalysts, scientists have started looking for organic alternative. In this work, the Uppsala researchers have studied organic polymers as photocatalysts (light-driven catalysts). The bottleneck of all existing organic photocatalyts is that they are hydrophobic (water insoluble), making it difficult for protons to penetrate into the pores of the materials and to interact with reactive sites. Consequently, the performance of photocatalysis based on those materials is still behind that of the traditional metal-based inorganic photocatalysts. Scientists have to add a lot of organic solvent in the reactor in order to make a good dispensability of organic polymeric photocatalyst.