Chemistry Department Colloquium

"Sun, Water, Hydrogen: from micro-algae to nanostructured electrocatalytic nanomaterials"

Presented by Vincent Artero, University of Grenoble, France

Friday, June 11, 2010, 11:00 am — Hamilton Seminar Room, Bldg. 555

As far as hydrogen/water interconversion is concerned, a number of technological solutions such as those developed in proton-exchange-membrane fuel-cells or electrolyzers are based on the powerful catalytic properties of platinum metal. But this scarce and expensive metal itself is not a sustainable resource and its replacement by low cost and readily available materials is a requisite for these technologies to become economically viable. A competitive alternative to platinum should be found in living micro-organisms metabolizing hydrogen thanks to hydrogenases. Catalysis in hydrogenases only requires base-metal centers (nickel and iron) and we will show how their active sites can be used as an inspiration for the design of new synthetic catalysts for hydrogen production and oxidation.1,2
In addition, it is highly desirable to produce hydrogen from renewable resources such as water and solar energy as done by some natural micro-organisms thought a photosynthetic process. To work towards this end, we will show how we can take inspiration from microbes and algae to design noble-metal free electrocatalysts3-6 and photocatalysts7,8 that can be further grafted on nanostructured materials.9-11
References

1 Canaguier, S.; Artero, V.; Fontecave, M. Dalton Trans. 2008, 315-325.
2 Wilson, A. D.; Newell, R. H.; McNevin, M. J.; Muckerman, J. T.; DuBois, M. R.; DuBois, D. L. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2006, 128, 358-366.
3 Baffert, C.; Artero, V.; Fontecave, M. Inorg. Chem. 2007, 46, 1817-1824.
4 Razavet, M.; Artero, V.; Fontecave, M. Inorg. Chem. 2005, 44, 4786-4795.
5 Jacques, P.-A.; Artero, V.; Pécaut, J.; Fontecave, M. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2009, 106, 20627-20632
6 Canaguier, S.; Field, M.; Oudart, Y.; Pécaut, J.; Fontecave, M.; Artero, V. Chem. Commun. 2010, in press.
7 Fihri, A.; Artero, V.; Pereira, A.; Fontecave, M. Dalton Trans. 2008, 5567-5569.
8 Fihri, A.; Artero, V.; Razavet, M.; Baffert, C.; Leibl, W.; Fontecave, M. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2008, 47, 564-56

Hosted by: Etsuko Fujita

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