Acetylene-linked conjugated polymers for sacrificial photocatalytic hydrogen evolution from water

Conjugated organic polymers have shown potential as photocatalysts for hydrogen production by water splitting. Taking advantage of a high throughput screening workflow, two series of acetylene-linked co-polymers were prepared and studied for their potential as photocatalysts for sacrificial hydrogen production from water. It was found that a triethynylbenzene-based polymer with a dibenzo[b,d]thiophene sulfone linker (TE11) had the highest performance in terms of hydrogen evolution rate under visible illumination in the presence of a sacrificial hole-scavenger. Synthetically elaborating the triethynylbenzene linker in TE11 by changing the core and by introducing nitrogen, the resulting hydrogen evolution rate was further increased by a factor of nearly two.

Automated summary

It was found that a polymer based on a triethynylbenzene dibenzo[b,d]thiophene sulfone linker had the highest hydrogen evolution rate under visible illumination, and by further synthetic elaboration of the triethynylbenzene linker, the hydrogen evolution rate was significantly increased.