Effects of anchoring groups on perylenemonoimide-based sensitizers for p-type dye-sensitized solar cells and photoelectrochemical cells

In this work, two new dyes YK-1 and YK-2 with carboxylic acid and hydroxamic acid as anchoring groups,respectively, in combination with diphenylamine as donor and perylenemonoimide as acceptor were synthesized and applied in p-type dye-sensitized solar cells（p-DSCs） and dye-sensitized photoelectrochemical cells（PEC）. The results showed that the sensitizer（YK-1） based on carboxylic acid displayed a higher conversion efficiency of 0.064% under AM 1.5 solar conditions in p-DSCs. However, it was interesting that the hydroxamic acid based sensitizer（YK-2） on Ni O photocathode displayed better performance in a hydrophilic environment over a broad p H range under visible-light irradiation because of a versatile covalent attachment to Ni O surfaces. This may be ascribed to hydroxamic acid anchors, which have more sites interacting with the surface of Ni O in aqueous solution. This study demonstrates that YK-2 containing hydroxamic acid anchoring group is a promising candidate to achieve highly efficient and stable activity for dye-sensitized PEC system.

Synergy of photocatalytic reduction and adsorption for boosting uranium removal with PMo_(12)/UiO-66 heterojunction

In this work,we proposed a new U(Ⅵ)removal strategy combining adsorption and photocatalytic reduction by the PMo_(12)/UiO-66 heterojunctions.The PMo_(12)has been encapsulated in the cavities of Ui O-66 by a one-step hydrothermal method,and the PMo_(12)/UiO-66 exhibited high adsorption capacity and photocatalytic activity.The maximal theoretical sorption capacity of U(Ⅵ)on 15%PMo_(12)/UiO-66 reached225.36 mg/g and the photoreduction rate of 15%PMo_(12)/UiO-66 is about thirty times as much as UiO-66.Under the light irradiation,the photogenerated electrons rapidly transport from UiO-66 to PMo_(12),and the photo-generated electrons could efficiently reduce the pre-enriched U(Ⅵ)to U(IV).This work provides new insights into remediation of the radioactive environment.

Photo-driven water splitting photoelectrochemical cells by tandem organic dye sensitized solar cells with I-/I3- as redox mediator

Dye-sensitized photoelectrochemical tandem cells have shown the promise for light driven hydrogen production from water owing to the low cost,wide absorption spectra in the visible region and ease to process of their constitutive photoelectrode materials.However,most photo-driven water splitting photoelectrochemical cells driven by organic dye sensitized solar cells exhibit unsatisfactory hydrogen evolution rate,primarily attributed to their poor light capturing ability and low photocurrent performance.Here we present the construction of a tandem system consisting of an organic blue-colored S5 sensitizer-based dyesensitized photoelectrochemical cell(DSPEC) wired in series with three spectral-complemental dyes BTA-2,APP-3 and APP-1 sensitizers-based dye-sensitized solar cell(DSC),respectively.The two spectral-complemental chromophores were used in DSC and DSPEC to ensure that the full solar spectrum could be absorbed as much as possible.The results showed that the photocurrent of tandem device was closely related to the open-circuit voltage(Voc) of sensitized DSC,in which the tandem configuration consisting of S5 based DSPEC and BTA-2 based DSC gave the best photocurrent.On this basis,tandem device with the only light energy and no external applied electrical bias was further constructed of BTA-2 based 2-junction DSC and S5 based DSPEC and obtained a photocurrent of 500 μA cm-2 for hydrogen generation.Furthermore,I-/I3-was used as a redox couple between dye regeneration and O2 production on the surface of Pt-IrO2/WO3.The strategy opens up the application of pure organic dyes in DSC/DSPEC tandem device.