TY  - JOUR
A1  - Herold, Heike M.
A1  - Aigner, Tamara Bernadette
A1  - Grill, Carolin E.
A1  - Krüger, Stefanie
A1  - Taubert, Andreas
A1  - Scheibel, Thomas R.
T1  - SpiderMAEn
BT  - recombinant spider silk-based hybrid materials for advanced energy technology
JF  - Bioinspired, Biomimetic and Nanobiomaterials
N2  - A growing energy demand requires new and preferably renewable energy sources. The infinite availability of solar radiation makes its conversion into storable and transportable energy forms attractive for research as well as for the industry. One promising example of a transportable fuel is hydrogen (H-2), making research into eco-friendly hydrogen production meaningful. Here, a hybrid system was developed using newly designed recombinant spider silk protein variants as a template for mineralization with inorganic titanium dioxide and gold. These bioinspired organic/inorganic hybrid materials allow for hydrogen production upon light irradiation. To begin with, recombinant spider silk proteins bearing titanium dioxide and gold-binding moieties were created and processed into structured films. These films were modified with gold and titanium dioxide in order to produce a photocatalyst. Subsequent testing revealed hydrogen production as a result of light-induced hydrolysis of water. Therefore, the novel setup presented here provides access to a new principle of generating advanced hybrid materials for sustainable hydrogen production and depicts a promising platform for further studies on photocatalytic production of hydrogen, the most promising future fuel.
KW  - hybrid materials
KW  - hydrogen
KW  - photocatalysts
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1680/jbibn.18.00007
SN  - 2045-9858
SN  - 2045-9866
VL  - 8
IS  - 1
SP  - 99
EP  - 108
PB  - ICE Publishing
CY  - Westminister
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Wirth, Jonas
A1  - Neumann, Rainer
A1  - Antonietti, Markus
A1  - Saalfrank, Peter
T1  - Adsorption and photocatalytic splitting of water on graphitic carbon nitride
BT  - a combined first principles and semiempirical study
JF  - physical chemistry, chemical physics : PCCP
N2  - Graphitic carbon nitride, g-C₃N₄, is a promising organic photo-catalyst for a variety of redox reactions. In order to improve its efficiency in a systematic manner, however, a fundamental understanding of the microscopic interaction between catalyst, reactants and products is crucial. Here we present a systematic study of water adsorption on g-C₃N₄ by means of density functional theory and the density functional based tight-binding method as a prerequisite for understanding photocatalytic water splitting. We then analyze this prototypical redox reaction on the basis of a thermodynamic model providing an estimate of the overpotential for both water oxidation and H⁺ reduction. While the latter is found to occur readily upon irradiation with visible light, we derive a prohibitive overpotential of 1.56 eV for the water oxidation half reaction, comparing well with the experimental finding that in contrast to H₂ production O₂ evolution is only possible in the presence of oxidation cocatalysts.
KW  - initio molecular-dynamics
KW  - augmented-wave method
KW  - visible-light
KW  - tight-binding
KW  - transition
KW  - oxidation
KW  - photooxidation
KW  - simulations
KW  - reduction
KW  - hydrogen
Y1  - 2014
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1039/c4cp02021a
SN  - 1463-9076
SN  - 1463-9084
VL  - 2014
IS  - 16
SP  - 15917
EP  - 15926
ER  -