Titre : Beyond Water Splitting: Novel Approaches to Solar Fuels.

La conférence (en anglais) sera prononcée par le professeur Stefan Bernhard du département de chimie de la Carnegie Mellon University. Ce dernier sera de passage à Montréal à titre d'examinateur externe d'une soutenance de thèse en chimie. 

Résumé : Pathways for converting light to chemical energy are critical for development and implementation of future sustainable energy solutions. This lecture will highlight progress in the area of photon-driven fuel production with the first part of the talk focusing on photocatalytic reduction of Zn²⁺ ions to metallic Zn. Iridium(III) complexes have proven to be effective photocatalysts for such production of Zn fuel, and the optimization of the catalyst as well as the solvent and zinc starting material will be discussed. An organocatalytic approach will also be presented as an alternative to the use of expensive 3^rd row transition metal catalysts. The second part of the talk will highlight new work on the photocatalytic de-hydrogenation of alcohols driven by visible light. These efforts strive to use cheap and abundant biomolecules as a source of carbon neutral hydrogen. Finally, the lecture will end by highlighting the Bernhard group’s ongoing work on water oxidation catalysis. New results involving iron and iridium-based catalysts will be presented with emphasis on the elucidation of the water oxidation mechanism which involves complex, concerted electron and proton transfer processes.

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