VISIBLE Project

Coordinator

Gabriel Loget (ISM)

Université de Bordeaux

Keywords

 Photocatalysis ; Materials, Electrochemiluminescence ; Semiconductors ; Solar energy ; in-situ analysis ; Optical microscopie

Summary

The VISIBLE project aims to develop a new imaging method to accelerate developments in photocatalysis and solar fuel production. Specifically, we will develop versatile analytical methods for the in-situ characterization and high-throughput screening of suspended or surface-immobilized photocatalytic systems by combining electrochemiluminescence (ECL) microscopy and photocatalysis. The two main objectives of VISIBLE are the reactivity imaging of single-photocatalysts suspended in solution (a fundamental breakthrough that has never been reported so far) and, the fast and high-throughput optical mapping of photocatalytic reactivity (that will be directly applied for photocatalyst optimization). In VISIBLE, on-chip photocatalyzed ECL (PC-ECL) will be developed to screen a large range of photocatalysts’ activity, to rapidly optimize photocatalytic operation conditions and conveniently evaluate potential aging/degradation effects. In addition, this approach will enable to select the best photocatalyst materials and the optimized operating conditions to get it. Conventional photocatalysis experiments will be performed to establish the correlation between PC-ECL and photocatalytic activity as well as demonstrate the benefit of using PC-ECL as a marker for catalyst activity. Our approach represents a promising way to accelerate the crucial quest for finding more performant photocatalytic systems for the large-scale deployment of solar fuel production methods.