New development of photoinduced electron-transfer catalytic systems*
Shunichi Fukuzumi
Department of Material and Life Science, Division of Advanced Science and Biotechnology, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, SORST, Japan Science and Technology Agency, 2-1 Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan
Abstract: As an alternative to conventional charge-separation functional molecular models based on multi-step long-range electron transfer (ET) within redox cascades, simple donor-acceptor dyads have been developed to attain a long-lived and high-energy charge-separated (CS) state without significant loss of excitation energy. In particular, a simple molecular electron donor-acceptor dyad, 9-mesityl-10-methylacridinium ion (Acr+-Mes), is capable of fast charge separation but extremely slow charge recombination. Such a simple molecular dyad has significant advantages with regard to synthetic feasibility, providing a variety of applications for photoinduced ET catalytic systems, including efficient photocatalytic systems for the solar energy conversion and construction of organic solar cells.
Keywords: electron transfer; redox cascades; donor-acceptor dyads; photoinduced electron transfer; solar energy; photocatalytic.
*Paper based on a presentation at the 18th IUPAC International Conference on Physical Organic Chemistry (ICPOC-18), 20-25 August 2006, Warsaw, Poland. Other presentations are published in this issue, pp. 955-1151.