Síntesis y caracterización de un modelo biomimético [FeFe]-hidrogenasa para producción fotocatalítica de hidrógeno

Resumo

Hydrogen (H2) is gaining increasing attention as renewable energy source due to its potential for replacing fossil fuels as the energy carrier of the future. Indeed, the scientific community is looking for environmentally sustainable alternative energy systems that can produce H2 efficiently. In the biological H2 production, the [FeFe]-hydrogenases are the family of enzymes that catalyze the reduction of protons to H2 in a reversible manner. During last years, great scientific efforts have been directed to the synthesis of chemical compounds which imitate the active site of these enzymes and its integration in light-driven hydrogen generation systems. In this work, an [FeFe]-hydrogenase biomimetic catalyst with a hydroxyl pendantgroup (FeFeOH) has been synthetized and characterized by different instrumental techniques such as 1H NMR, ATR-FTIR and UV-vis. The photocatalytic study was carried out using Ru(bpy)32+ as a photosensitizer and ascorbic acid as a sacrificial electron donor in an acetate buffer medium (1M, pH=5.0). Under optimal conditions, FeFeOH catalyst showed a TON of 4.75 in light-driven hydrogen production