Supramolecular catalyst with [FeCl4] unit boosting photoelectrochemical seawater splitting via water nucleophilic attack pathway

Propelled by the structure of water oxidation co-catalysts in natural photosynthesis, molecular co-catalysts have long been believed to possess the developable potential in artificial photosynthesis. However, the interfacial complexity between light absorber and molecular co-catalyst limits its structural stability and charge transfer efficiency. To overcome the challenge, a supramolecular scaffold with the [FeCl 4 ] catalytic units is reported, which undergo a water-nucleophilic attack of the water oxidation reaction, while the supramolecular matrix can be in-situ grown on the surface of photoelectrode through a simple chemical polymerization to be a strongly coupled interface. A well-defined BiVO 4 photoanode hybridized with [FeCl 4 ] units in polythiophene reaches 4.72 mA cm −2 at 1.23 V RHE , which also exhibits great stability for photoelectrochemical seawater splitting due to the restraint on chlorine evolution reaction by [FeCl 4 ] units and polythiophene. This work provides a novel solution to the challenge of the interface charge transfer of molecular co-catalyst hybridized photoelectrode. The strongly coupled interface between molecular catalysts and light absorbers is the key to solving efficient photoelectrochemical water oxidation. An in situ polymerized supramolecular-like catalyst was used to couple with BiVO4 for efficient and stable photoelectrochemical seawater splitting