In Germany, with artificial photosynthesis, mankind could utilise solar energy to bind carbon dioxide and produce hydrogen. Würzburg chemists have taken this one step further. One of the leading researchers in the field of artificial photosynthesis is chemist Professor Frank Würthner from Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg in Bavaria, Germany. His team has now succeeded in imitating one of the first steps of natural photosynthesis with a sophisticated arrangement of artificial dyes and analysing it more precisely.
The results were obtained in collaboration with Professor Dongho Kim’s group at Yonsei University in Seoul (Korea). They have been published in the journal Nature Chemistry.
The researchers have succeeded in synthesising a stack of dyes that is very similar to the photosynthetic apparatus in plant cells – it absorbs light energy at one end, uses it to separate charge carriers and transfers them step by step to the other end via a transport of electrons. The structure consists of four stacked dye molecules from the perylene bisimide class.
Tags: artificial photosynthesis, Germany
Category: Research
