Proceedings of nanoGe Fall Meeting 2018 (NFM18)
Publication date: 6th July 2018
Light-driven water electrolysis at a semiconductor surface is a promising way to generate hydrogen from sustainable energy sources, but its efficiency is limited by the performance of available photoabsorbers.[1] Here we report the first investigation of covalent organic frameworks (COFs) as a new class of photoelectrodes.[2] The two-dimensional (2D) COF structure is assembled from aromatic amine-functionalized tetraphenylethylene and thiophene dialdehyde building blocks to form conjugated polyimine sheets, which π-stack in the third dimension to create photoactive porous frameworks. The highly oriented COF films absorb light in the visible range to generate electrons that are transferred to the electrolyte resulting in proton reduction and hydrogen evolution. The observed photoelectrochemical activity of the 2D-COF films and their photocorrosion stability in water pave the way for the development of a novel class of photoabsorber materials with versatile optical and electronic properties that are tunable through the selection of appropriate building blocks and their three-dimensional stacking.
[1] L. M. Peter, J Solid State Electrochem 2013, 17, 315-326.
[2] T. Sick, A. G. Hufnagel, J. Kampmann, I. Kondofersky, M. Calik, J. M. Rotter, A. Evans, M. Döblinger, S. Herbert, K. Peters, D. Böhm, P. Knochel, D. D. Medina, D. Fattakhova-Rohlfing, T. Bein, Journal of the American Chemical Society 2018, 140, 2085-2092.