Polymer Semiconductors for Artificial Photosynthesis: Hydrogen Evolution by Mesoporous Graphitic Carbon Nitride with Visible Light

摘要

Due to energy and environmental issues, a key target of modern chemistry is to mimic natural photosynthesis to generate energy storage molecules from water using sunlight, in the simplest case hydrogen. The creation of efficient, simple, and sustainable materials as photocatalysts working with visible light represents a central challenge of the field. Spectacular advances have been made using inorganic nanomaterials. Polymer or supermolecular systems, which would be much closer to nature, have been rarely explored, although they are known from "plastic optoelectronics". The first polymer semiconductor reported to allow hydrogen evolution was poly(p-phenylene), but with ultraviolet light only and rapid decomposition under irradiation.