[SPST Seminar] Topic: Supramolecular Chromophores: From Assembly to Photocatalysis

ON2024-05-13TAG: ShanghaiTech UniversityCATEGORY: Lecture

Topic: Supramolecular Chromophores: From Assembly to Photocatalysis
Speaker: Associate Professor Luka Ðorđević, Department of Chemical Sciences, University of Padova (Unipd)
Date and time: May 15, 13:30–15:30
Venue: Room 105, #5 Building of SPST
Host: Yang Fan

Abstract:
In the field of artificial photosynthesis, self-assembly is an attractive strategy that utilizes noncovalent interactions to mimic the alignment and organization of light-harvesting machinery found in plants. Although recently there has been much progress in the chemistry of supramolecular polymers for harvesting sunlight, most systems are limited to the aqueous photocatalytic production of hydrogen. Therefore, efforts are still needed to develop artificial photosynthetic systems for the great challenge of CO2 reduction (especially with nonabundant metals) and/or production of liquid fuels.
To obtain supramolecular materials for production of solar fuels, the design of monomers is crucial. The monomers utilized are chromophore amphiphiles that, on one hand, encode the light-harvesting ability to drive photocatalytic reactions and, on the other hand, spontaneously self-assemble in aqueous solutions. This talk will describe two separate strategies to use self-assembled materials to photocatalyticallyproduce either (i) carbon monoxide and methane starting from carbon dioxide or (ii) hydrogen peroxide from water and oxygen.

Biography:
Luka Ðorđević received his PhD in 2016 from the Department of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Trieste, under the guidance of Professors Maurizio Prato and Davide Bonifazi. From 2016 to 2018, he worked as post-doctoral researcher at Universities of Trieste and Cardiff. Then he moved to Northwestern University in United States and worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in Professor Sam Stupp’s group from 2018 to 2022. He joined University of Padova as an assistant professor in November 2022. In October 2023, he established his research group in supramolecular photocatalysis, as associate professor, thanks to the ERC Grant.