Directing the Selectivity of Oxygen Reduction to Water by Confining a Cu Catalyst in a Metal Organic Framework.

Electrocatalysis is to play a key role in the transition towards a sustainable chemical and energy industry and active, stable and selective redox catalysts are much needed. Porous structures such as metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are interesting materials as these may influence selectivity of chemical reactions through confinement effects. In this work, the oxygen reduction catalyst Cu-tmpa was incorporated into the NU1000 MOF.

Interfacial Characterization of Ruthenium-Based Amphiphilic Photosensitizers.

Nonreactive surfactant molecules have long been used and characterized for a wide range of applications in industries, life science, and everyday life. Recently, new types of functional amphiphilic molecules have emerged that bear another function, for example, a light-absorbing action, or catalytic properties. However, the surfactant properties of these molecules remain to date essentially unknown.

Shorter Alkyl Chains Enhance Molecular Diffusion and Electron Transfer Kinetics between Photosensitisers and Catalysts in CO -Reducing Photocatalytic Liposomes.

Covalent functionalisation with alkyl tails is a common method for supporting molecular catalysts and photosensitisers onto lipid bilayers, but the influence of the alkyl chain length on the photocatalytic performances of the resulting liposomes is not well understood. In this work, we first prepared a series of rhenium-based CO -reduction catalysts [Re(4,4'-(C H ) -bpy)(CO) Cl] (ReC ; 4,4'-(C H ) -bpy=4,4'-dialkyl-2,2'-bipyridine) and ruthenium-based photosensitisers [Ru(bpy) (4,4'-(C H ) -bpy)](PF ) (RuC ) with different alkyl chain lengths (n=0, 9, 12, 15, 17, and 19). We then prepared a series of PEGylated DPPC liposomes containing RuC and ReC , hereafter noted C , to perform photocatalytic CO reduction in the presence of sodium ascorbate.