Discovering the balance of steric and electronic factors needed to provide a new structural motif for photocatalytic hydrogen production from water

Travis A White; Brittany N Whitaker; Karen J Brewer

doi:10.1021/ja206782k

Discovering the balance of steric and electronic factors needed to provide a new structural motif for photocatalytic hydrogen production from water

J Am Chem Soc. 2011 Oct 5;133(39):15332-4. doi: 10.1021/ja206782k. Epub 2011 Sep 2.

Authors

Travis A White¹, Brittany N Whitaker, Karen J Brewer

Affiliation

¹ Department of Chemistry, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061-0212, United States.

PMID: 21875106
DOI: 10.1021/ja206782k

Abstract

Ru,Rh,Ru supramolecules are known to undergo multielectron photoreduction and reduce H(2)O to H(2). Ru,Rh bimetallics were recently shown to photoreduce but not catalyze H(2)O reduction. Careful tuning of sterics and electronics for [(TL)(2)Ru(dpp)RhCl(2)(TL')](3+) produce active bimetallic photocatalysts (TL = terminal ligand). The system with TL,TL' = Ph(2)phen photocatalytically reduces H(2)O to H(2) while TL,TL' = phen,bpy or bpy,(t)Bu(2)bpy do not.