International Collaboration in Chemistry - Modular microtubular architectures for photo-driven water splitting
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Glasgow
Department Name: School of Chemistry
Abstract
The world's present energy requirements are set to double by 2050, and although this increased demand could, in principle, be met by fossil fuels (currently the source of over 70% of our energy), the increased CO2 output would undoubtedly have deleterious consequences.An alternative solution is to harness the abundant energy that comes from the sun: the amount of solar energy that strikes the surface of the earth each hour is more than mankind currently uses each year. Research on all aspects of solar energy capture has increased considerably in recent years because the technical establishments as well as government and business sectors realize both the pressing need and the extraordinary opportunity that exists in the development of green, sustainable sources of energy. Photovoltaic (PV) devices are increasingly competitive based on efficiency, production costs and operating lifetime. Specifically, the best single crystal Si-based PV devices are up to 22% efficient but are currently prohibitively expensive for large-scale use. In contrast, dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are only about half this efficient but have the potential to be produced in quantity at far lower cost. However, these and other developing PV technology is limited to generation and storage of electrical energy, and while battery technology is improving, the energy density (weight and molar energy density) in our current batteries is far lower than what is available in fuels. This is why much activity at present is aimed at the direct production of fuel using sunlight. There is, of course, one process already known on Earth that achieves production of "solar fuel" - photosynthesis - although even this process, optimized over billions of years, is less then 1% efficient for most terrestrial plants. It is important therefore to consider every possible route towards harnessing solar energy to produce fuels. In this work we will use a novel range of molecular metal oxides, which have already been shown to be promising catalysts for the oxidation and splitting of water in to hydrogen and oxygen and therefore potentially of use for the generation of solar fuels, by the direct combination with dye-units that can transfer the suns energy to molecular oxide. This will exploit the recent discoveries of the US group (very fast water oxidation with a metal oxide catalyst) and the UK group (growth of microscale tubular architectures when the metal oxide is combined with the dye-cation). This means it is possible to 'grow' catalytic heterostructures that could convert sunlight into fuels on surfaces in with high surface area and robustness opening up a whole new area of science and application to 'fossil' free energy solutions.
Planned Impact
Ensuring a stable energy supply is the central challenge of the 21st century, and this team will highlight the importance of the problem and prepare the next generation of scientists. In additional to the technical goals, this project is envisaged to have broader impacts in four distinct domains:
1. The successful completion of the scientific goals of this program will transform thinking about catalysis using heterostructured metal oxides derived from molecular building blocks by creating independent modules for studying and optimizing the light and dark processes. These modules, as well as the platform for testing them as a system, will be freely shared with other researchers.
2. Students and RAs will be important stakeholders in team. Furthermore, the proposed project offers extraordinary training opportunities to students at all levels. Unique to this project is the combination of skills between Glasgow and Emory to create a world leading team in molecular metal oxides and catalysis for the formation of new heterostructured surfaces for solar fuel production.
3. The team exemplifies the globalization of science and will serve as a model for collaboration between the NSF and the EPSRC. Recognizing the importance of international collaboration, we have carefully constructed a trans-Atlantic administrative structure to foster close ties and included funds in the budget to support exchange of scientific personnel between laboratories.
4. Dissemination of scientific results will be crucial to this project, both to push the boundaries of solar-fuel research and engage the public in understanding a crucial problem. The geographic disparity of the participants provides a unique opportunity to develop web-based solar-fuel resources to engage the international community.
1. The successful completion of the scientific goals of this program will transform thinking about catalysis using heterostructured metal oxides derived from molecular building blocks by creating independent modules for studying and optimizing the light and dark processes. These modules, as well as the platform for testing them as a system, will be freely shared with other researchers.
2. Students and RAs will be important stakeholders in team. Furthermore, the proposed project offers extraordinary training opportunities to students at all levels. Unique to this project is the combination of skills between Glasgow and Emory to create a world leading team in molecular metal oxides and catalysis for the formation of new heterostructured surfaces for solar fuel production.
3. The team exemplifies the globalization of science and will serve as a model for collaboration between the NSF and the EPSRC. Recognizing the importance of international collaboration, we have carefully constructed a trans-Atlantic administrative structure to foster close ties and included funds in the budget to support exchange of scientific personnel between laboratories.
4. Dissemination of scientific results will be crucial to this project, both to push the boundaries of solar-fuel research and engage the public in understanding a crucial problem. The geographic disparity of the participants provides a unique opportunity to develop web-based solar-fuel resources to engage the international community.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Leroy Cronin (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Anamimoghadam O
(2015)
Electronically Stabilized Nonplanar Phenalenyl Radical and Its Planar Isomer.
in Journal of the American Chemical Society
Angelone D
(2021)
Convergence of multiple synthetic paradigms in a universally programmable chemical synthesis machine.
in Nature chemistry
Bloor LG
(2016)
Solar-Driven Water Oxidation and Decoupled Hydrogen Production Mediated by an Electron-Coupled-Proton Buffer.
in Journal of the American Chemical Society
Bloor LG
(2014)
Low pH electrolytic water splitting using earth-abundant metastable catalysts that self-assemble in situ.
in Journal of the American Chemical Society
Cameron JM
(2016)
Investigating the Transformations of Polyoxoanions Using Mass Spectrometry and Molecular Dynamics.
in Journal of the American Chemical Society
Caramelli D
(2018)
Networking Chemical Robots Using Twitter for #RealTimeChem
Caramelli D
(2018)
Networking chemical robots for reaction multitasking.
in Nature communications
Cereda A
(2014)
A bioelectrochemical approach to characterize extracellular electron transfer by Synechocystis sp. PCC6803.
in PloS one
Chen J
(2017)
Design and Performance of Rechargeable Sodium Ion Batteries, and Symmetrical Li-Ion Batteries with Supercapacitor-Like Power Density Based upon Polyoxovanadates
in Advanced Energy Materials
Chen JJ
(2015)
High-Performance Polyoxometalate-Based Cathode Materials for Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Batteries.
in Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.)
Chen JJ
(2018)
Highly reduced and protonated aqueous solutions of [P2W18O62]6- for on-demand hydrogen generation and energy storage.
in Nature chemistry
Chisholm G
(2014)
3D printed flow plates for the electrolysis of water: an economic and adaptable approach to device manufacture
in Energy Environ. Sci.
Cogdell R
(2014)
Artificial photosynthesis - solar fuels: current status and future prospects
in Biofuels
Cogdell R
(2012)
Learning from photosynthesis: how to use solar energy to make fuels
in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences
Endo D
(2012)
Molecular Motions and Hydrogen-Bonding Networks in ( o -Aminoanilinium)-(Crown Ethers)-[PMo 12 O 40 ] 4- Crystals
in Bulletin of the Chemical Society of Japan
Granda JM
(2018)
Controlling an organic synthesis robot with machine learning to search for new reactivity.
in Nature
Grizou J
(2020)
A curious formulation robot enables the discovery of a novel protocell behavior.
in Science advances
Gromski P
(2019)
How to explore chemical space using algorithms and automation
in Nature Reviews Chemistry
Kirkaldy N
(2018)
A practical, organic-mediated, hybrid electrolyser that decouples hydrogen production at high current densities.
in Chemical science
Kowalski D
(2023)
Automated Library Generation and Serendipity Quantification Enables Diverse Discovery in Coordination Chemistry
in Journal of the American Chemical Society
Lei J
(2019)
Tuning Redox Active Polyoxometalates for Efficient Electron-Coupled Proton-Buffer-Mediated Water Splitting.
in Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
MacDonald L
(2018)
Selective hydrogenation of nitroarenes using an electrogenerated polyoxometalate redox mediator.
in Chemical communications (Cambridge, England)
MacDonald L
(2017)
Using earth abundant materials for the catalytic evolution of hydrogen from electron-coupled proton buffers
in Sustainable Energy & Fuels
Martin-Sabi M
(2018)
Redox tuning the Weakley-type polyoxometalate archetype for the oxygen evolution reaction.
in Nature catalysis
McHugh P
(2020)
Decoupled Electrochemical Water Splitting: From Fundamentals to Applications
in Advanced Energy Materials
Mehr S
(2020)
A universal system for digitization and automatic execution of the chemical synthesis literature
in Science
Minato T
(2021)
Robotic Stepwise Synthesis of Hetero-Multinuclear Metal Oxo Clusters as Single-Molecule Magnets.
in Journal of the American Chemical Society
Miras HN
(2020)
Spontaneous formation of autocatalytic sets with self-replicating inorganic metal oxide clusters.
in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Nakanishi K
(2018)
Development of a Minimal Photosystem for Hydrogen Production in Inorganic Chemical Cells.
in Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English)
Nemeth B
(2012)
Real-time ion-flux imaging in the growth of micrometer-scale structures and membranes.
in Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.)
Points L
(2018)
Artificial intelligence exploration of unstable protocells leads to predictable properties and discovery of collective behavior
in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Rausch B
(2013)
A bio-inspired, small molecule electron-coupled-proton buffer for decoupling the half-reactions of electrolytic water splitting.
in Journal of the American Chemical Society
Rausch B
(2014)
Decoupled catalytic hydrogen evolution from a molecular metal oxide redox mediator in water splitting.
in Science (New York, N.Y.)
Salley D
(2020)
A nanomaterials discovery robot for the Darwinian evolution of shape programmable gold nanoparticles.
in Nature communications
Salley DS
(2020)
A Modular Programmable Inorganic Cluster Discovery Robot for the Discovery and Synthesis of Polyoxometalates.
in ACS central science
Suárez-Marina I
(2019)
Integrated synthesis of nucleotide and nucleosides influenced by amino acids
in Communications Chemistry
Symes MD
(2013)
Decoupling hydrogen and oxygen evolution during electrolytic water splitting using an electron-coupled-proton buffer.
in Nature chemistry
Symes MD
(2013)
Designing artificial photosynthetic devices using hybrid organic-inorganic modules based on polyoxometalates.
in Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences
Thiel J
(2012)
Insights into the Self-Assembly Mechanism of the Modular Polyoxometalate "Keggin-Net" Family of Framework Materials and Their Electronic Properties
in Crystal Growth & Design
Ye JC
(2018)
Strategies to Explore and Develop Reversible Redox Reactions of Li-S in Electrode Architectures Using Silver-Polyoxometalate Clusters.
in Journal of the American Chemical Society
Zalesskiy S
(2019)
3D designed and printed chemical generators for on demand reagent synthesis
in Nature Communications
Zang HY
(2016)
Assembly of inorganic [Mo2S2O2]2+ panels connected by selenite anions to nanoscale chalcogenide-polyoxometalate clusters.
in Chemical science
Zhang G
(2016)
Water-Soluble Pentagonal-Prismatic Titanium-Oxo Clusters.
in Journal of the American Chemical Society
Zheng Q
(2018)
Self-Sorting of Heteroanions in the Assembly of Cross-Shaped Polyoxometalate Clusters.
in Journal of the American Chemical Society
| Description | Creation of a spin-out company, Astrea, described elsewhere |
| Exploitation Route | We have developed a scalable, efficient solar energy-harvesting systems capable of operating at low light intensity represents one of the greatest scientific challenges today. Described in papers and patented the system. |
| Sectors | Construction,Creative Economy,Energy,Environment |
| Description | This research has tackled directly a problem of great academic, industrial and global significance - namely the direct conversion of solar energy and carbon dioxide / water to methanol. The research has been substantial for academic interest to groups interested in energy transfer and solar cells, as well as photosynthesis and the direct production of solar fuels. The results of this research have now (2021) expanded into utilising these materials for energy storage and we have recently reported the use of one of our POMs to store up to 18 moles of electrons per mole of POM. In addition we have ongoing research in the hybrid POMs utilised above for the creation of redox active peptides. Importantly, one of the key researchers on this projects was awarded a URF for his work on energy materials during this project and has been promoted to Senior Lecturer, running his own research group on these topics. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2012 |
| Sector | Chemicals,Creative Economy,Education,Energy,Environment |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal,Economic,Policy & public services |
| Company Name | Astrea Power |
| Description | Astrea Power is an exciting new spin out company that will exploit a novel electrolysis technique invented at the University of Glasgow that will revolutionise hydrogen generation and power to gas. Electrolysis for hydrogen generation is increasingly being recognized as a key enabling technology for the supply of high purity hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles, energy systems and industrial applications. Within these contexts, hydrogen production via electrolysis enables: Maximising grid integration of renewables. Increasing the economic value of renewable assets (energy storage). Creation of a low zero carbon fuel to decarbonize transport, heat and industrial applications (CO2 reduction value). Economic application of ultrapure hydrogen in industrial and laboratory applications. Current electrolytic hydrogen generation systems remain high cost, are not easily coupled to renewable sources and their cost reduction routes other than via economies of scale are limited. The technology Astrea will exploit was developed by a team led by Professor Lee Cronin of the School of Chemistry at the University Of Glasgow. Scottish Enterprise, Scotland's economic development agency, have funded the project since 2013. The technology has resulted in a patented system that has both cost and performance advantages over current current electrolyser and hydrogen storage systems including: increased durability, increased efficiency, low cost high pressure and high purity capability, reduced precious metal usage and low load capability for maximizing solar/wind capture and as a consequence delivers a lower cost of ownership to the end user. |
| Year Established | 2015 |
| Impact | just started |