Publications by authors named "J D Durrant"
Article Synopsis
- Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is an emerging method for hydrogen production, but its efficiency is hindered by issues like carrier recombination and slow water oxidation.
- The study shows that adding a ferromagnetic coating (FeTiO) to a photoanode (BiVO) and using an external magnetic field enhances solar water oxidation performance by improving charge separation and catalytic efficiency.
- The findings suggest that this magnetic field technique can be applied to other metal oxide photoanodes, indicating a new approach to boost PEC performance in nonmagnetic semiconductor materials.
Article Synopsis
- Recent advancements in organic photovoltaics (OPVs) have significantly improved device efficiency, particularly through the design of nonfullerene acceptors and reducing energy offset at the donor/acceptor interface.
- Temperature-dependent transient absorption spectroscopy reveals that charge generation in these OPV blends has minimal activation energy (11-21 meV), indicating a highly efficient process that is largely independent of energy offset.
- While geminate recombination also shows low activation energy, bimolecular charge recombination is significantly influenced by temperature, with an activation energy greater than 400 meV, suggesting that charge generation might be more of an adiabatic process than one governed by traditional Marcus theory.
This study examines the kinetic origins of the temperature dependence of photoelectrochemical water oxidation on nanostructured titania photoanodes. We observe that the photocurrent is enhanced at 50 °C relative to 20 °C, with this enhancement being most pronounced (by up to 70%) at low anodic potentials (<+0.6 V vs RHE).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOrganic heterojunction nanoparticles (NP) have recently gained significant interest as photocatalysts for visible light-driven hydrogen production. Whilst promising photocatalytic efficiencies have been reported for aqueous NP dispersions, the underlying dynamics of photogenerated charges in such organic heterojunction photocatalysts and how these might differ from more widely studied dry heterojunction films remain relatively unexplored. In this study, we combine transient optical spectroscopies over twelve orders of magnitude in time, using pulsed and continuous light illumination, to elucidate the differences in the charge carrier dynamics of heterojunction NP dispersions, dried NP films, and bulk heterojunction films prepared by spin coating.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIncreasing the interface area between organic semiconductor photocatalysts and electrolyte by fabricating nanoparticles has proven to be an effective strategy to increase photocatalytic hydrogen production activity. However, it remains unclear if increasing the interface by the introduction of porosity has as clear benefits for activity. To better inform future photocatalyst design, a series of polymers of intrinsic microporosity (PIMs) with the same conjugated backbone were synthesized as a platform to independently modulate the variables of porosity and relative hydrophilicity through the use of hydrophilic alcohol moieties protected by silyl ether protecting groups.
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