Polymeric coatings for applications in electrocatalytic and photoelectrosynthetic fuel production

Applications of polymeric coatings have emerged as a promising direction for preparing multilayered assemblies and controlling surface properties. In addition to providing a foundation for interfacing soft materials onto solid supports, polymers afford opportunities to develop hybrid constructs with properties difficult to achieve using monolayer-based chemical modification methods. In particular, the microenvironments of polymers are proposed to facilitate charge transfer to redox-active sites, manage delivery of chemical substrates, improve product specificity during catalytic transformations, and lend chemical protection to underpinning solid-state supports as well as embedded components. In this article, we highlight selected examples of polymeric materials utilized in electrocatalytic and photoelectrosynthetic fuel production.