Forming electron traps deactivates self-assembled crystalline organic nanosheets toward photocatalytic overall water splitting

• 来源期刊: 科学通报（英文版）
• 年，卷（期）: 2021,（3）
• 所属期刊栏目: ARTICLES
• 页码范围: 265-274
• 页数: 10页
• 语种: 英文

摘要

Most biological photoredox reactions occur in sophisticated molecular assemblies consisting of highly organized light-harvesting moieties and catalytic centers.Mimicking these prototypes by creating supramolecular assemblies could be a potentially viable approach toward artificial photosynthesis.Although self-assembled organic materials are known to carry out water splitting reactions,developing self-assembled organic materials for photocatalytic overall water splitting still remains a critical challenge.Herein,we first demonstrate that crystalline organic nanosheets assembled from linear oligo(phenylene butadiynylene)(OPB)are able to catalyze overall water splitting under visible light irra-diation.Further investigations reveal that the photocatalytic activity of self-assembled organic structures is closely related to the crystalline structure along with the corresponding electronic structure.Structural disorders in OPB nanosheets and extrinsic factors such as adsorbed water molecules will induce the for-mation of electron traps which can make the OPB nanosheets thermodynamically unfavorable for photo-catalytic overall water splitting.The deactivation mechanism unveiled in this study provides crucial insights into the assembling of artificial organic materials for future solar-to-chemical energy conversion.