Converting water impurity in organic solvent into hydrogen and hydrogen peroxide by organic semiconductor photocatalyst

Photocatalytic water-splitting to generate hydrogen (H 2 ) and hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) is a green and renewable method to convert solar energy into chemical energy. The water impurity in organic solvents is usually hard to be removed. Here, we firstly used an organic semiconductor (DAnTMS) synthesized from 9,10-dibromoanthracene and trimethylsilylacetylene to convert the water impurity in organic solvent into H 2 and H 2 O 2 by photocatalysis. Under visible light, for 300.0 μL water in 20.0 mL methyl cyanide (MeCN) system, the DAnTMS catalyst can produce H 2 and H 2 O 2 with rate of 245.9 μmol g −1 h −1 and 3923.4 μmol g −1 h −1 , respectively. Furthermore, a practical photocatalytic experiment was performed in 20.0 mL commercially available MeCN (99.8%, H 2 O ≤ 0.01%) with 10.0 mg DAnTMS as catalyst, in which, the total 15.4 μmol H 2 and 176.7 μmol H 2 O 2 were generated after 12 h reaction, suggesting the water impurity in MeCN was completely removed. In present catalytic system, on DAnTMS, O 2 and H 2 O are reduced into H 2 O 2 and H 2 , respectively, while, H 2 O is oxidized into H 2 O 2 through a 2e - pathway. An organic semiconductor was used to convert the water impurity in MeCN (98%, H 2 O ≤ 0.01%) into H 2 and H 2 O 2 by photocatalysis. • DAnTMS was used to convert the water impurity in organic solvent into H 2 and H 2 O 2 by photocatalysis. • TPV tests were used to explore the half-reaction process and catalytic mechanism. • The extrapolation was applied on the TPV curves.