Home Products Cited in Publications Worldwide Immobilizing a Lehn-Type Catalyst with Nitrocyclocondensation Chemistries: CO2 Reduction on Silicon Hybrid Photoelectrodes
ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces,2025.
Orr, Andre D; Zhu, Zhengbo; Durand, Nicolas; Bonfiglio, Anna; Teitsworth, Taylor S; Sampaio, Renato N; Castellano, Felix N; Cahoon, James F; Donley, Carrie L; Lockett, Matthew R
DOI:10.1021/acsami.5c03638 PMID:40457868
We present the first examples of installing a redox reporter and CO2 reduction (CO2R) catalyst onto freshly HF-etched Si (photo)electrodes using a solution-phase nitrocyclocondensation (NCC) reaction. Previous studies detailed the mechanism of NCC reactions on Si under ultrahigh vacuum conditions but have not applied these chemistries to generate functional (photo)electrodes. Installing 4-nitrophenyl ferrocene (4-NpFc) molecules directly onto degenerately doped p+Si allowed us to evaluate the effects of different NCC reaction conditions on coverage (e.g., 3.6 ± 1.2 × 10−11 mol/cm2) and electrochemical reversibility. The 4-NpFc molecules remained immobilized under the reducing potentials (−2.0 V vs Fc+/0 in acetonitrile) needed to drive molecular CO2R catalysts. Installing 4-nitroaniline (4-NA) molecules onto low-doped pSi allowed us to couple Lehn-type Re(I) catalysts with pendant carboxylic acids. The CO Faradaic efficiency of CO production under 1-sun illumination (−2.15 V vs Fc+/0) was 23% in CO2-saturated electrolyte, a value that surpasses previous examples of CO2R catalyst monolayers on Si. These two examples highlight the versatility of solution-phase NCC attachment chemistries for generating functional Si (photo)electrodes.
photoelectrode ; cathode ; silicon ; semiconductor ; solar fuel ; catalysis ; surface chemistry