Dye-sensitized ethanol photoreforming for H2 production

Hydrogen is both a fundamental chemical and an almost ideal energy carrier, because it has no carbon footprint and can be ideally obtained from photocatalytic water splitting. Despite that, the low efficiency of the latter process, due to the high oxidation potential required for the water oxidation reaction, hampered its application on a large scale. A possible way to overcome this drawback is the photoreforming of renewable feedstocks, in which a sacrificial electron donor (SED), such as an organic molecule, is necessary for H2 production. In our recent work, we sensitized Pt/TiO2 nanoparticles with several rationally designed organic donor-acceptor dyes (figure 1) and employed them as photocatalysts for H2 production in the presence of both triethanolamine and, for the first time, ethanol as SEDs. The synthesis, characterization and catalytic activity of all the dyes will be presented in this communication.