Zhang Lab

邮箱:zhuyf@tsinghua.edu.cn

Hydrogen production breakthrough in hydrogen-bonded organic frameworks via hydrogen-bonded organic frameworks photocatalysis.

Organic semiconductors are an attractive class of photocatalysts for hydrogen production, but their quantum yield is limited by the transfer of photo-generated charges to the surface. Shortening the distance from the exciton coupling region to the catalyst surface is considered a promising strategy to reduce charge transfer losses. Professor Yongfa Zhu’s team at Tsinghua University used a one-dimensional hydrophilic micro-porous channel hydrogen-bonded organic framework HOF-H4TBAPy as a proof-of-concept for this method. Under irradiation, photo-generated excitons can rapidly transfer to the inner surface of adjacent micro-pores, forming a transfer path of only 1.88 nm, which significantly improves exciton utilization. When the length of the micro-pore channel is no more than 0.59 μm, the photocatalytic hydrogen production rate of HOF-H4TBAPy reaches 358 mmol h-1 g-1, and the apparent quantum yield at 420 nm is 28.6%. Professor Zhu’s team further demonstrated stable hydrogen production activity of 1.03 mol day-1 m-2 on a 0.5 m2 HOF-H4TBAPy-loaded fiber under 1 Sun irradiation.