Tsinghua University's Zhu Yongfa and The University of Hong Kong's Guo Yan have reported photocatalytic hydrogen evolution primarily driven by exciton transfer constrained in hydrogen-bonded organic frameworks, published in Nature Catalysis with an impact factor of 40.706.
Organic frameworks with one-dimensional channel micropores are promising materials due to their porous structure, providing abundant reaction sites and accelerating mass transfer processes. The concept verification is demonstrated using hydrogen-bonded organic framework HOF-H₄TBAPy, where micropores confine the exciton effect and enhance light activity. Under illumination, photogenerated excitons rapidly transfer to the inner surface of adjacent micropores, shortening the exciton transfer path to 1.88 nm, significantly improving exciton utilization. When the length of micropore channels does not exceed 0.59 μm, the sacrificial photocatalytic H₂ production rate of HOF-H₄TBAPy reaches 357.93 mmol·h-1·g-1, with an apparent quantum yield of 28.6% at 420 nm.
Furthermore, stable hydrogen evolution on a 0.5 m2 HOF-H₄TBAPy-loaded fiber under simulated sunlight is demonstrated, with a rate of 1.03 mol·day-1·m-2. Indoor tests under simulated sunlight show promising hydrogen production activity, indicating the potential for large-scale hydrogen production based on HOF devices.
Figure 1. Photocatalytic H₂ Evolution Performance of HOF-H₄TBAPy.
The reaction equipment used in this study is the Perfectlight Technology best-selling product, Labsolar-6A Fully Glass Automatic Online Trace Gas Analysis System. This is another top-tier publication in the Nature series following Nature (Article→Reconstructed covalent organic frameworks) and Nature Energy (Article→Greenhouse-inspired supra-photothermal CO₂ catalysis).
The 0.5 m2 flat-panel reactor used in this study is provided by Perfectlight Technology and is based on the PLR-SPR Series Flat-Plate Photocatalytic Reaction Device. This device, originally developed by Academician Li Can's team at Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, is capable of large-area photocatalytic reactions under direct sunlight, without collecting the gases generated during the reaction, only retaining the solution after the photoreaction.
The PLR-SPR Series Flat-Plate Photocatalytic Reaction Device used in this study is based on the direct solar array flat-plate photocatalytic reaction system and includes gas-liquid separation and gas collection modules for quantitative analysis of the gas products generated in small-scale amplification experiments.
Note: The above images and video are from this article and corresponding supporting materials.
The PLR-SPR Series Flat-Plate Photocatalytic Reaction Device is now being used by multiple research institutions.
Perfectlight Technology, after 17 years of development, has accumulated dozens of independent intellectual property rights, including invention patents, international PCT patents, utility model patents, and software copyrights. It has close cooperation with over a thousand domestic and foreign universities, research institutes, and research institutions, and deep collaborations with top research laboratories. Through continuous exploration and innovation, Perfectlight Technology's technical research and product development capabilities have been repeatedly verified, widely recognized by various research institutions in the industry. Taking Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics and Tsinghua University as examples, Perfectlight's customized demonstration engineering equipment has significantly contributed to their scientific research and achieved major research results.
