Abstract: With the worldwide dependence on non-renewable fossil fuels and increasing
concerns over their impact on our planet through greenhouse gas emissions
finding an alternative source of clean energy is a global imperative. The solar
energy is one source of renewable energy resources, and It has the highest
potential to contribute substantially to the future of carbon-free power needs. Solar
to hydrogen has attracted much attention in the past decade due to its abundance
and the spotlessness of hydrogen as fuel for energy usage. However, practically
the requirements to convert solar energy to hydrogen, require a stable
photocatalyst that’s able to operate efficiently over a wide range of the UV-VIS
spectrum. Organic semiconductors have been widely used in hydrogen evolution
due to their earth abundance, aqueous stability, and optical absorption that can be
tuned to the UV-VIS spectrum.
In chapter 3, The effect of different sacrificial regents on hydrogen evolution activity
was systemically investigated by using poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene-alt-benzothiadiazole)
(F8BT) nanoparticles dispersion large and small diameter with Sodium dodecyl sulfate
(SDS) as stabilizer. Ascorbic acid (AA), diethylamine (DEA), triethanolamine (TEOA),
and triethylamine mixed with methanol (TEA/MeOH) were chosen as sacrificial
reagents. The results indicate that the large diameter give improved efficiency with
ascorbic acid, and the small diameter improved activity in the presence of
diethylamine. The results indicated that the comparison between different sacrificial
reagents is difficult because, the conditions of every experiment is different to
another, depending on (the type of photocatalyst used, solubility, activity..) so to
date, there is no clear concurrence in which sacrificial reagent is better than others.
Photocatalysts formed from a single organic semiconductor typically suffer from
inefficient intrinsic charge generation, which leads to low photocatalytic activities.
In chapter 4, To overcome this limitation, we have used BTR, O-IDTBR, and PC71BM
in binary and tertiary heterojunction nanoparticles between non fullerene donors’ small
molecules and fullerene acceptor. The resulting photocatalyst display
unprecedentedly a high hydrogen evolution rate over 12000 μmolh-1g-1 under AM 1.5g
illumination.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:kaust.edu.sa/oai:repository.kaust.edu.sa:10754/660421 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Sulaimani, Shahad |
| Contributors | McCulloch, Iain, Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division, Laquai, Frédéric, Anthopoulos, Thomas D. |
| Source Sets | King Abdullah University of Science and Technology |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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