The Physical Chemistry of Solar Fuels Catalysis

There remain enormous scientific challenges to fully understanding how to harness abundant and sustainable, but diffuse and intermittent, solar energy to generate portable or storable chemical fuels. A molecular-level understanding of interfacial structure, device morphology, and scale up processes is critical for translating discoveries in physical science to technological breakthroughs. Molecular systems are particularly well-suited to address this challenge because they are readily interrogated by spectroscopies and computational tools with resolution in both space and time. This special issue will highlight cutting-edge research in solar fuels catalysis with a focus on the physical chemistry underpinning light-harvesting, charge transfer and separation, and multi-electron catalytic processes by molecular architectures, assemblies, and interfaces.

Guest Editors: Javier Concepcion, Benjamin Dietzek-Ivanšić, Osamu Ishitani, Karen Mulfort, and Junko Yano with JCP Editor-in-Chief Tim Lian