Heptacoordinate CoII Complex: A New Architecture for Photochemical Hydrogen Production

Fiorella Lucarini; Mariachiara Pastore; Serhii Vasylevskyi; Massimo Varisco; Euro Solari; Aurelien Crochet; Katharina M Fromm; Fabio Zobi; Albert Ruggi

doi:10.1002/chem.201701427

Heptacoordinate Co^II Complex: A New Architecture for Photochemical Hydrogen Production

Chemistry. 2017 May 17;23(28):6768-6771. doi: 10.1002/chem.201701427. Epub 2017 May 2.

Authors

Fiorella Lucarini¹, Mariachiara Pastore², Serhii Vasylevskyi¹, Massimo Varisco³, Euro Solari⁴, Aurelien Crochet¹, Katharina M Fromm¹, Fabio Zobi¹, Albert Ruggi¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, University of Fribourg, Chemin du Musée 9, 1700, Fribourg, Switzerland.
² University of Lorraine and CNRS, SRSMC, TMS, France.
³ École d'Ingénieurs et d'Architectes, Fribourg, Switzerland.
⁴ Institut des Sciences et Ingénierie Chimique, École PolytechniqueFédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.

PMID: 28398602
DOI: 10.1002/chem.201701427

Abstract

The first heptacoordinate cobalt catalyst for light-driven hydrogen production in water has been synthesized and characterized. Photochemical experiments using [Ru(bpy)₃ ]²⁺ as photosensitizer gave a turnover number (TON) of 16300 mol H₂ (mol cat.)^-1 achieved in 2 hours of irradiation with visible (475 nm) light. This promising result provides a path forward in the development of new structures to improve the efficiency of the catalysis.

Keywords: cobalt; heptacoordinate complex; hydrogen; photocatalysis; polypyridyl ligand.