2-FOR-1: Singlet Fission for Multielectron Photocatalysis

Transitioning to a renewable fuel infrastructure is a huge challenge for society and using solar energy harvesting is a most promising method to succeed with this challenge. 2-FOR-1 aims to introduce a new approach to photocatalysis and solar fuels production.

Through materials engineering fundamental physical and chemical limits in photocatalysi production will be addressed and improved.The materials engineering approach in 2-FOR-1 is based on singlet fission, a photophysical process that allows 1 photon to generate 2 excited states (or charge carriers), compared to traditional materials, which results in a 1-to-1 ratio of photon-to-excited states.

Singlet fission will be applied to solar-fuels production and photocatalysis to address a long-standing challenge of charge carrier accumulation in multielectron photocatalysis.Singlet fission has been known for over 50-years, but has not been considered for photocatalytic applications.

Furthermore, the understanding of the singlet fission process has significantly grown over the last 5-years and I will build the 2-FOR-1 project on this new knowledge to explore this new application in photocatalysis.

By designing and synthesising molecular singlet fission dimer structures attached to an electron acceptor or catalytic unit I will pioneer the use of singlet fission in photocatalysis.

Thus, in 2-FOR-1 I will address and develop fundamentally new chemistry and extend the fields of photocatalysis and singlet fission.