February Molecule of the Month

Image and post credit: Dr. Steve Tereniak

February 2023’s Molecule of the Month is fac-Re(5-(p-styrene)-phen)(CO)₃Cl!

This CO₂ reduction catalyst was attached to hydrogen-terminated silicon(111) by sonochemical hydrosilylation, the first example of sonochemical hydrosilylation applied to immobilize an organometallic complex on a Si photoelectrode, and backfilled with 1-hexene! The hybrid photoelectrode was characterized by a variety of techniques including attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-IR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS), cyclic voltammetry (CV), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and contact angle goniometry. The paper was a collaboration among the Dempsey, Castellano, Atkin, Fakhraai, and Meyer groups with photoelectron spectroscopy by CHASE staff scientist Dr. Carrie L. Donley.

Check it out at https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.2c17078!