Control of Electrons' Spin Eliminates Hydrogen Peroxide Formation During Water Splitting.

The production of hydrogen through water splitting in a photoelectrochemical cell suffers from an overpotential that limits the efficiencies. In addition, hydrogen-peroxide formation is identified as a competing process affecting the oxidative stability of photoelectrodes. We impose spin-selectivity by coating the anode with chiral organic semiconductors from helically aggregated dyes as sensitizers; Zn-porphyrins and triarylamines. Hydrogen peroxide formation is dramatically suppressed, while the overall current through the cell, correlating with the water splitting process, is enhanced. Evidence for a strong spin-selection in the chiral semiconductors is presented by magnetic conducting (mc-)AFM measurements, in which chiral and achiral Zn-porphyrins are compared. These findings contribute to our understanding of the underlying mechanism of spin selectivity in multiple electron-transfer reactions and pave the way toward better chiral dye-sensitized photoelectrochemical cells.

Chiral "doped" MOFs: an electrochemical and theoretical integrated study.

This work reports on the electrochemical behaviour of Fe and Zn based metal-organic framework (MOF) compounds, which are "doped" with chiral molecules, namely: cysteine and camphor sulfonic acid. Their electrochemical behaviour was thoroughly investigated via "solid-state" electrochemical measurements, exploiting an "ad hoc" tailored experimental set-up: a paste obtained by carefully mixing the MOF with graphite powder is deposited on a glassy carbon (GC) surface. The latter serves as the working electrode (WE) in cyclic voltammetry (CV) measurements. Infrared (IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and absorbance (UV-Vis) techniques are exploited for a further characterization of the MOFs' structural and electronic properties. The experimental results are then compared with DFT based quantum mechanical calculations. The electronic and structural properties of the MOFs synthesized in this study depend mainly on the type of metal center, and to a minor extent on the chemical nature of the dopant.

Role of the Electron Spin Polarization in Water Splitting.

We show that in an electrochemical cell, in which the photoanode is coated with chiral molecules, the overpotential required for hydrogen production drops remarkably, as compared with cells containing achiral molecules. The hydrogen evolution efficiency is studied comparing seven different organic molecules, three chiral and four achiral. We propose that the spin specificity of electrons transferred through chiral molecules is the origin of a more efficient oxidation process in which oxygen is formed in its triplet ground state. The new observations are consistent with recent theoretical works pointing to the importance of spin alignment in the water-splitting process.