Département de chimie moléculaire

Solar driven water-splitting into hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2) has emerged as a very attractive sustainable approach to produce the fuel H2, which can be considered as promising clean and renewable energy carrier for the future. The development of homogeneous multi-component photocatalytic systems for the redn. of protons to H2 based on mol. compds. has experienced considerable growth since the end of the seventies. Such systems are generally composed of a light-harvesting antenna (photosensitizer), a hydrogen-evolving catalyst and a sacrificial electron donor coupled in some cases with an electron mediator. This review will survey the literature on homogeneous mol. multi-component photocatalytic systems for hydrogen prodn. using rhodium complexes as catalysts with a special highlight on those operating in fully aq. soln. In all of these studies, ruthenium-tris(bipyridine) or heteroleptic cyclometalated iridium complexes have been used as photosensitizers. Rhodium(III) complexes with poly(bipyridyl) ligands have been employed as catalysts in most of the studies. These multi-components photocatalytic systems are based on two different approaches: (i) multi-mol. systems, and (ii) systems involving an assembled structure (photocatalyst) that chem. couples in the same mol. the photosensitizer and the catalyst. [on SciFinder(R)]