Bio-inspired Solar Light Driven Hydrogen Production

能源是21世纪最重要的问题之一，因为我们未来的供应目前受到日益减少的化石燃料储备、政治不稳定以及导致污染和全球变暖的环境问题的威胁。可再生氢（H2）被广泛认为是一种潜在的未来燃料，但其廉价和高效的生产仍然是一个尚未解决的主要实际问题。太阳为我们的星球提供源源不断的电磁和无碳能源，是唯一能够满足人类长期能源需求的能源。这个epsrc资助的项目的目的是开发一种高效的生物启发制氢催化剂，从丰富和廉价的原材料，并与光收集复合物耦合，以捕获太阳提供的能量，为从水中生产H2提供动力-在H2的化学键中储存太阳能。如果要真正推动H2成为可持续燃料，就需要选择性和经济的化学催化剂来实现能量、水和H2的中心化学相互转化。常用的贵金属催化剂（如铂）在后化石燃料时代不能用于氢气生产，因为(i)资源有限和成本高，（ii）反应选择性差（如能源浪费在不必要的副反应上），以及（iii）微量常见化学物质（如一氧化碳）中毒（催化剂致死）。微生物生命形式利用生物催化剂（氢化酶）在室温和中性ph的安全条件下，以快速的选择性和可逆的速度从水中生产H2。氢化酶的催化反应中心（活性位点）含有铁或镍铁金属中心，通常被半胱氨酸、一氧化碳和氰化物配体包围。因此，氢化酶的活性位点是一个有趣的生物基序来模拟，以便从丰富和廉价的原料中构建氢气生产催化剂。这项关于太阳能制氢的冒险工作有望成为实现可持续氢经济的大规模水光解的基本步骤。国际（法国，美国）和国家（曼彻斯特）学术以及工业（赢创工业）在酶生物学，光谱学，太阳能电池，纳米颗粒和中子衍射方面的专业合作伙伴将在我的指导下支持这个项目。此外，这项生物启发/仿生制氢催化剂的工作还将处理废水处理，精细化学品的合成，并可能让我们深入了解生物体如何在分子水平上将水转化为H2，并揭示逆反应如何工作：从H2产生能量，这对燃料电池的应用很重要。

Energy is one of the most important issues of the twenty-first century, because our future supply is currently threatened by progressively decreasing fossil fuel reserves, political instability and environmental problems resulting in pollution and global warming. Renewable hydrogen, H2, is widely considered as a potential future fuel, but its cheap and efficient production is still a major unresolved practical issue. The sun provides our planet with a continuous flow of electromagnetic and carbon-free energy and it is the only energy source, which is capable of sustaining human kind's long-term energy demand. The aim of this EPSRC-funded project is the development of an efficient bio-inspired H2 production catalyst from abundant and inexpensive raw materials and its coupling to light-harvesting complexes to capture energy provided by the sun to power H2 production from water - the storage of solar energy in the chemical bond of H2.Selective and economical chemical catalysts are needed for the central chemical interconversion of energy, water and H2 if there is to be a real prospect of promoting H2 as a sustainable fuel. Commonly employed precious metal catalysts (e.g. platinum) cannot be used for H2 production in the post-fossil fuel era, because of (i) limited resources and high cost, (ii) poor reaction selectivity (e.g. energy is wasted on unwanted side-reactions), and (iii) poisoning (catalyst-killing) by trace amounts of common chemicals, e.g. carbon monoxide. Microbial life forms handle the challenging task of H2 production using bio-catalysts (hydrogenases) to drive the selective and reversible production of H2 from water at fast rates under the safe conditions of room temperature and neutral pH. The catalytic reaction centre (active site) of hydrogenases contains an iron or nickel-iron metal centre surrounded typically by cysteine, carbon monoxide and cyanide ligands. Thus, the active site of a hydrogenase is an interesting biological motif to mimic in order to build H2 production catalysts from abundant and inexpensive raw materials. This adventurous work on solar H2 production has the prospect of being a fundamental step towards large-scale water photolysis for a sustainable hydrogen economy. International (France, USA) and national (Manchester) academic as well as industrial (Evonik Industries) collaborators with expertise in enzyme biology, spectroscopy, solar cells, nanoparticles, and neutron diffraction will support this project under my guidance. In addition, this work on bio-inspired/biomimetic H2 production catalysts will also deal with wastewater treatment, the synthesis of fine chemicals, and might give us insight into how living organisms convert water into H2 on a molecular level, and reveal how the reverse reaction works: the generation of energy from H2, which is important for fuel cell applications.