Zhao Bin, a professor from the School of Chemistry of Nankai University, and Wang Weichao, a professor from the School of Electronic Information and Optical Engineering, have jointly developed a new efficient photocatalyst with dual functions of photolysis of hydrogen in water and photodegradation of organic matter. The catalyst has high thermal stability, water stability and catalytic efficiency, and can be reused. This achievement has important application value in solving global problems such as energy shortage and environmental pollution. The paper introducing this work was published online in German Applied Chemistry a few days ago.

Photolysis of hydrogen and photodegradation of organic matter in water is one of the effective ways to solve energy shortage and environmental pollution at present, but the core problem is how to design efficient, cheap and stable photocatalyst. Traditional photocatalysts are mainly precious metals and heterostructure semiconductors. Due to the limited natural reserves of precious metals, high price, complex structure and high preparation cost of heterostructure semiconductors, its application in solving environmental and energy problems is seriously hindered.

MOF- 1 developed by the research group led by Zhao Bin and Wang Weichao uses bivalent copper ions, univalent copper ions generated in situ and designed new ligands to assemble a three-dimensional porous MOFs material, avoiding the use of precious metal elements with limited reserves. The material has good thermal stability and solvent stability, and can efficiently utilize solar energy. The researchers predicted that MOF- 1 has dual functions of photolysis of aquatic hydrogen and photodegradation of organic matter, which was confirmed in the experiment. In addition, repeated experiments by researchers have verified the reusability of MOF- 1, which is very important to reduce the cost of pollutant treatment. ;