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High-rate Solar Hydrogen Evolution Using Small Molecule Donor/Acceptor Organic Semiconductors

Organic semiconductors, comprised of π-conjugated aromatic systems, have attracted considerable research interests owing to the earth abundance of their constituent elements, including carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and so on. In contrast to conjugated polymeric semiconductors, small molecule organic semiconductors are particularly appealing due to simpler synthetic routes, facile purification, well-defined molecular structures, improved processability, and high reproducibility. Organic semiconductor possesses a small Frenkel exciton radius (~5 Å) and a high exciton binding energy (0.3-1.0 eV), which limit the electron-hole (e⁻-h⁺) pairs separation within the same molecule. However, the dissociation of e⁻-h⁺ pairs into free charge carriers can be facilitated through the incorporation of the donor-acceptor (D-A) architecture. In donor-acceptor systems, intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) occurs through electron donation from the electron-rich donor unit to the electron-deficient acceptor unit. Moreover, the energies of the frontier molecular orbitals (HOMO and LUMO) in donor-acceptor-donor (D-A-D) systems can be tuned by varying the donor units, thereby modulating their optical and electrochemical properties. Herein, we employed a palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reaction, namely Suzuki-Miyaura coupling, to synthesize different small molecules having D-A-D structure with a common benzoselenadiazole acceptor unit. We tested these D-A-D systems to generate solar hydrogen by methanol photoreforming. The D-A-D systems exhibited high-rate solar hydrogen evolution due to improved charge separation, favorable redox potentials, and reduced Gibbs free energy for methanol photoreforming compared to water splitting.

Date and Time

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Location

• This event has virtual attendance info. Please visit the event page to attend virtually.
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• RCES Online Seminar -- High-rate Solar Hydrogen Evolution Using Small Molecule Donor/Acceptor Organic Semiconductors 
  Friday, March 27 · 11:00am – 12:00pm
  Time zone: America/Edmonton
  Google Meet joining info
  Video call link: https://meet.google.com/itf-ybsq-efa
  Or dial: ‪(CA) +1 289-348-8234‬ PIN: ‪533 502 870‬#
  More phone numbers: https://tel.meet/itf-ybsq-efa?pin=5546315394722

Hosts

• Northern Canada Section Chapter,PEL35
• Northern Canada Sect Aff Grp,YP
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• Co-sponsored by Resilience and Clean Energy Systems (RCES)

Registration

• Starts 16 March 2026 12:00 AM MDT
• Ends 27 March 2026 12:00 PM MDT
• No Admission Charge

Speakers

Md Masud Rana of University of Alberta