Abstract
A donor–acceptor–donor (D–A–D) dye consisting of ferrocene units (donors) and a benzothiadiazole unit (acceptor) was synthesized to use the photosensitizer for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) from water within semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotube (s-SWCNT). The dye was easily encapsulated into s-SWCNT by a solution method to form dye-encapsulated s-SWCNTs (dye@SWCNTs). Subsequently, physical modification of dye@SWCNTs by a fullerodendron gave dye@SWCNT/fullerodendron nanohybrids having dye/s-SWCNT/C60 coaxial heterojunction. Interestingly, dye@SWCNT/fullerodendron nanohybrids act as the photosensitizer for HER in the presence of sacrificial donor, electron relay, and co-catalyst due to the mobile carrier generation upon photoexcitation of the dye molecules.
Graphical Abstract
Acknowledgments
This work was partially supported by JSPS KAKENHI grants 15H03519 (Y. T.) and 16K05895 (T. T.).