Molecular oxide interfaces
Efficient photochemical water splitting based on new hybrid systems
The development of efficient catalysts for photo-driven water oxidation is important for the future of artificial solar water splitting. Combining high-efficient molecular catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (bottleneck of water splitting) with a stable solid platform is essential for the construction of photoelectrochemical cells.
Hybrids are generally understood to be the combination of two fundamentally different materials. We investigate hybrids of organometallic complexes anchored on oxide solids like perovskites. The complexes are highly efficient catalysts for certain chemical reactions, e.g. the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen and are developed at the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry. The oxide serves as a charge injector or absorber, providing the necessary electrons and holes for the electrochemical reaction.
Hybrids are generally understood to be the combination of two fundamentally different materials. We investigate hybrids of organometallic complexes anchored on oxide solids like perovskites. The complexes are highly efficient catalysts for certain chemical reactions, e.g. the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen and are developed at the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry. The oxide serves as a charge injector or absorber, providing the necessary electrons and holes for the electrochemical reaction.
Our main goal is to investigate the atomic and electronic structure of such interfaces and how this determines the transfer of charges from the oxide to the molecular catalyst. We specifically study the photoinduced multistep charge transfer of the catalysis for the oxygen evolution reaction.
For our spatially and temporally resolved measurements we use a setup including a rotating ring disk electrode (RRDE) together with a light source and methods like Cyclovoltammetry, Chronoamperometry, XPS, UPS, XRD and AFM.
