Small organic molecular electrocatalysts for fuels production

Abstract

In recent years, heterocyclic organic compounds have been explored as molecular electrocatalysts in relevant reactions for energy conversion and storage. Merging mimetics of biological systems that perform hydride transfer with rational synthetic chemical design has opened many opportunities for organic molecules to be tuned at the atomic level conferring them interesting reactivities. These molecular electrocatalysts represent an alternative to traditional metallic materials and metal complexes employed for water oxidation, hydrogen production and carbon dioxide reduction. This minireview describes recent reports concerning design, catalytic activity and the mechanism of synthetic molecular electrocatalysts towards solar fuels production.