Publication date: 22nd July 2026
The increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have prompted researchers to investigate new technologies for producing carbon-based fuels and value-added chemicals through photocatalytic reduction of CO2.[1] Recently, covalent organic frameworks (COFs) have been explored as suitable porous supports for photocatalysts due to their remarkable physical and chemical stability, structural diversity and large surface areas.[2] Moreover, their light-harvesting capability can be improved by careful selection of building blocks such as perylene, while also tuning the bandgap to extend the lifetime of electron-hole pair separation in a z-scheme, thus establishing a thermodynamically favourable process.[3]
Light-driven catalytic conversion can be enhanced by forming an electron “donor-acceptor” type photocatalyst by embedding nanoparticles (NPs) into the COF network. NPs have been widely used for catalysis due to their high surface energy and quantum size effects and can accept the electrons excited within the porous network to reduce CO2. Small Au NPs, in particular, have been shown high efficiency and selectivity towards the production of CO,[4] while RuO2 NPs, which possess an excellent affinity to O2 gas with a favourable O2 binding energy low overpotential, and high water oxidation activity,[5] retain the photogenerated holes in the network to facilitate the oxidation of a sacrificial agent.
In this work, size-controlled Au NPs synthesised in-situ into a thiol-functionalised perylene-based COF and the incorporation of prestabilised RuO2 NPs will be shown. Well-distributed NPs into a z-scheme-designed photoactive porous network produced a novel robust hybrid material for the purpose of simultaneously reducing CO2 and oxidising water. A wide range of microscopy, spectroscopic and computational methods utilised to describe the structure and optical properties of this material will be described. In addition, preliminary results of its photocatalytic efficiency for CO2 reduction under visible light will be presented.
We acknowledge funding support from the Nefertiti project under grant agreement number 101022202.
nanoGe is a prestigious brand of successful science conferences that are developed along the year in different areas of the world since 2009. Our worldwide conferences cover cutting-edge materials topics like perovskite solar cells, photovoltaics, optoelectronics, solar fuel conversion, surface science, catalysis and two-dimensional materials, among many others.
Previously nanoGe Spring Meeting (NSM) and nanoGe Fall Meeting (NFM), MATSUS is a multiple symposia conference focused on a broad set of topics of advanced materials preparation, their fundamental properties, and their applications, in fields such as renewable energy, photovoltaics, lighting, semiconductor quantum dots, 2-D materials synthesis, charge carriers dynamics, microscopy and spectroscopy semiconductors fundamentals, etc.
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV) is celebrated yearly in May. The main topics are the development, function and modeling of materials and devices for hybrid and organic solar cells. The field is now dominated by perovskite solar cells but also other hybrid technologies, as organic solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, and dye-sensitized solar cells and their integration into devices for photoelectrochemical solar fuel production.
Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics
The main topics of the Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics (IPEROP) are discussed every year in Asia-Pacific for gathering the recent advances in the fields of material preparation, modeling and fabrication of perovskite and hybrid and organic materials. Photovoltaic devices are analyzed from fundamental physics and materials properties to a broad set of applications. The conference also covers the developments of perovskite optoelectronics, including light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.
The International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics (NIPHO) is the best place to hear the latest developments in perovskite solar cells as well as on recent advances in the fields of perovskite light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.