Hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) is one of the most essential inorganic chemicals due to its mild strong oxidant nature for wide applications. Among various manufacturing approaches, photocatalytic selective oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) has been considered as a promising strategy for H 2 O 2 production due to the clean and sustainable solar energy and feedstocks.
Profs. Jiang and Wang et al. published a paper titled “Engineering the Conjugation of Donor and Acceptor Units in Covalent Organic Frameworks for Efficient Photocatalytic H 2 O 2 Synthesis” in Science Bulletin . This article provides a detailed investigation of a series of six 2D D-A COFs to optimize the compatibility of D and A units for photocatalytic H 2 O 2 synthesis. The degree of conjugation of the D and A building blocks was engineered, and their effects on photocatalytic H 2 O 2 production of COFs were carefully explored. USTB-46 demonstrated an excellent photocatalytic H 2 O 2 production rate of 8274 mmol g −1 h −1 . The outstanding photocatalytic activity of this COF is due to its optimized light absorption, thermodynamic catalytic activity of the A units, and excellent compatibility of the D and A units. This finding clearly illustrates that compatible D and A units in COFs are important for efficient photocatalysis.
1. In this paper, three donor building units (D) and two acceptor building units (A) with varying degrees of conjugation were selected. Different combinations of D and A units were employed to synthesize six thiadiazole-derived D-A COFs.
2. The USTB-46 with optimized compatibility between donor and acceptor units achieves an impressive H 2 O 2 yield of 8274 mmol g −1 h −1 without any sacrificing reagents. The outstanding photocatalytic activity of this COF is due to its optimized light absorption, thermodynamic catalytic activity of the A units, and excellent compatibility of the D and A units.
3. This report presents the first investigation focusing on optimizing donor and acceptor compatibility to enhance photocatalytic activity. This finding clearly illustrates that compatible D and A units in COFs are important for efficient photocatalysis.
Science Bulletin