Design and synthesis of phenylphosphine oxide-based polymer photocatalysts for highly efficient visible-light-driven hydrogen evolution

• Published in: Sustainable energy & fuels 2020-10, Vol.4 (1), p.5264-527
• Main Authors: Wang, Wen-Hsin, Ting, Li-Yu, Jayakumar, Jayachandran, Chang, Chih-Li, Lin, Wei-Cheng, Chung, Chih-Chia, Elsayed, Mohamed Hammad, Lu, Chia-Yeh, Elewa, Ahmed M, Chou, Ho-Hsiu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Carbazole; Carbazoles; Charge transfer; Chemical synthesis; Conjugation; Design optimization; Evolution; Fluorene; Hydrogen; Hydrogen evolution; Palladium; Photocatalysis; Photocatalysts; Planar structures; Polymers
• ISSN: 2398-4902; 2398-4902
• DOI: 10.1039/d0se00928h

We have designed and synthesized a series of conjugated polymers with fluorene or carbazole and phenylphosphine oxide derivatives as polymer photocatalysts for visible-light-driven hydrogen evolution. The optimized polymer photocatalyst PCzBPO provided an excellent hydrogen evolution rate (HER) over two-orders of magnitude greater than its counterparts under otherwise identical conditions due to their unique combined effects of the introduced strong electron-withdrawing group, planar structure, extended conjugation length, and efficient charge transfer between donor/acceptor. Moreover, the PCzBPO exhibited an excellent HER with a record high apparent quantum yields (AQYs) of 14.92 ± 0.10% at 420 nm and 14.88 ± 0.08% at 460 nm with the residual palladium content and the absence of Pt cocatalysts. We believe that this systematic study on phenylphosphine oxide-containing polymers as ideal polymer photocatalysts could inspire further optimization and greater molecular design strategies in the development of high-performance photocatalysts to give a high impact in this field. We designed a series of phenylphosphine oxide derivatives as polymer photocatalysts for visible-light-driven hydrogen evolution. PCzBPO exhibited an excellent HER with a record high AQY of 14.88% at 460 nm.