Oxygen-Generating Gel Systems Induced by Visible Light and Application to Artificial Photosynthesis

摘要

Toward complete artificial photosynthesis systems to generate hydrogen and oxygen using visible light and water, we firstly design and fabricate oxygen-generating gel systems using the electrostatic interactions of ionic functional groups and steric effects of a polymer network. By using a graft polymer chain with Ru(bpy)_3~(2+) units as sensitizers to closely arrange RuO_2 nanoparticles as catalyst, the functional groups transmit multiple electrons cooperatively to generate oxygen. In this study, a novel strategy is shown to design a hierarchical network structure using colloidal nanoparticles and macromonomers.