Invited lectures-A molecular approach for water splitting with sunlight: the key for the transition from fossil to solar fuels

摘要

Water oxidation (WO) to molecular dioxygen and its inverse reaction oxygen reduction (OR) to water, are the two key reactions involved in water splitting and hydrogen fuel cells respectively. The mastering of both reactions WO and OR catalyzed by Transition Complexes (TMC) is an essential requirement for their potential applications in wide spread energy applications. In both cases the O–O bond formation and breakage step is crucial and needs to be fully understood as well as all the previous activation pathways. Additionally the oxidation of water to molecular oxygen is also a reaction of interest from a biological perspective since it is the main reaction occurring at the Oxygen Evolving Center of Photosystem II (OEC-PSII). These oxygen related reactions together with proton and CO_2 reduction catalytic reactions constitute the complete set of reactions needed to be able to come up with efficient models for molecular artificial photosynthesis [1].