MOCHAs: An emerging class of materials for photocatalytic H₂ production

Abstract

Production of green hydrogen (H₂) is a sustainable process able to address the current energy crisis without contributing to long-term greenhouse gas emissions. Many Ag-based catalysts have shown promise for light-driven H₂ generation, however, pure Ag—in its bulk or nanostructured forms—suffers from slow electron transfer kinetics and unfavorable Ag─H bond strength. It is demonstrated that the complexation of Ag with various chalcogenides can be used as a tool to optimize these parameters and reach improved photocatalytic performance. In this work, metal-organic-chalcogenolate assemblies (MOCHAs) are introduced as effective catalysts for light-driven hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and investigate their performance and structural stability by examining a series of AgXPh (X = S, Se, and Te) compounds. Two catalyst-support sensitization strategies are explored: by designing MOCHA/TiO₂ composites and by employing a common Ru-based photosensitizer. It is demonstrated that the heterogeneous approach yields stable HER performance but involves a catalyst transformation at the initial stage of the photocatalytic process. In contrast to this, the visible-light-driven MOCHA-dye dyad shows similar HER activity while also ensuring the structural integrity of the MOCHAs. The work shows the potential of MOCHAs in constructing photosystems for catalytic H₂ production and provides a direct comparison between known AgXPh compounds.