Photoinduced water oxidation in pyrimidine-water clusters: a combined experimental and theoretical study

Photo-oxidation of methanol in complexes with pyrido[2,3-b]pyrazine: a nonadiabatic molecular dynamics study

Excited-state Proton-Coupled Electron Transfer (PCET) constitutes a key step in the photo-oxidation of small, electron-rich systems possessing acidic hydrogen atoms, such as water or alcohols, which can play a vital role in green hydrogen production. In this contribution, we employ ab initio quantum-chemical methods and on-the-fly nonadiabatic molecular dynamics simulations to study the mechanism and the photodynamics of PCET in 1 : 1 pyrido[2,3-b]pyrazine complexes with methanol. We find the process to be ultrafast and efficient when the intramolecular hydrogen bond is formed with one of the β-positioned nitrogen atoms. The complex exhibiting a hydrogen bond with an isolated nitrogen site, on the contrary, shows much lower reactivity. We explain this effect with the stabilization of the reactive ππ* charge-transfer electronic state in the former case.

Trajectory Surface Hopping for a Polarizable Embedding QM/MM Formulation

We present the implementation of trajectory surface-hopping nonadiabatic dynamics for a polarizable embedding QM/MM formulation. Time-dependent density functional theory was used at the quantum mechanical level of theory, whereas the molecular mechanics description involved the polarizable AMOEBA force field. This implementation has been obtained by integrating the surface-hopping program Newton-X NS with an interface between the Gaussian 16 and the Tinker suites of codes to calculate QM/AMOEBA energies and forces. The implementation has been tested on a photoinduced electron-driven proton-transfer reaction involving pyrimidine and a hydrogen-bonded water surrounded by a small cluster of water molecules and within a large water droplet.

Pre-Dewar structure modulates protonated azaindole photodynamics

Recent experimental work revealed that the lifetime of the S₃ state of protonated 7-azaindole is about ten times longer than that of protonated 6-azaindole. We simulated the nonradiative decay pathways of these molecules using trajectory surface hopping dynamics after photoexcitation into S₃ to elucidate the reason for this difference. Both isomers mainly follow a common ππ* relaxation pathway involving multiple state crossings while coming down from S₃ to S₁ in the subpicosecond time scale. However, the simulations reveal that the excited-state topographies are such that while the 6-isomer can easily access the region of nonadiabatic transitions, the internal conversion of the 7-isomer is delayed by a pre-Dewar bond formation with a boat conformation.

Water Oxidation and Hydrogen Evolution with Organic Photooxidants: A Theoretical Perspective

In this Perspective, we discuss a novel water-splitting scenario, namely the direct oxidation of water molecules by organic photooxidants in hydrogen-bonded chromophore-water complexes. In comparison with the established scenario of semiconductor-based water splitting, the distance of electron transfer processes is thereby reduced from mesoscopic scales to the Ångström scale, and the time scale is reduced from milliseconds to femtoseconds, which suppresses competing loss processes. The concept is illustrated by computational studies for the heptazine-H₂O complex. The excited-state landscape of this complex has been characterized with ab initio electronic-structure methods and the proton-coupled electron-transfer dynamics has been explored with nonadiabatic dynamics simulations. A unique feature of the heptazine chromophore is the existence of a low-lying and exceptionally long-lived ¹ππ* state in which a substantial part of the photon energy can be stored for hundreds of nanoseconds and is available for the oxidation of water molecules. The calculations reveal that the absorption spectra and the photochemical functionalities of heptazine chromophores can be systematically tailored by chemical substitution. The options of harvesting hydrogen and the problems posed by the high reactivity of OH radicals are discussed.

Ab Initio Nonadiabatic Surface-Hopping Trajectory Simulations of Photocatalytic Water Oxidation and Hydrogen Evolution with the Heptazine Chromophore

In the past decade, polymeric carbon nitrides consisting of heptazine (Hz) building blocks emerged as highly promising materials for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution from water or sacrificial electron donors with near-ultraviolet light. However, the complexity of these materials and their poor characterization at the atomic level are detrimental to the unraveling of the detailed mechanisms of the reactions leading to hydrogen evolution. Recently, it has been shown that a derivative of the Hz molecule, trianisole-heptazine (TAHz), is a potent photobase, which readily oxidizes various derivatives of phenol and even water by an excited-state proton-coupled electron-transfer (PCET) reaction. Energy profiles along minimum-energy reaction paths and relaxed PCET potential-energy surfaces, which previously were computed with ab initio electronic-structure methods for complexes of Hz and TAHz with protic substrates, led to qualitative insights. To obtain more quantitative insight, reaction dynamics simulations are required. In the present work, the time scales of the electron and proton transfer processes and the branching ratios of competing channels were explored with ab initio on-the-fly quasiclassical surface-hopping trajectory simulations for the hydrogen-bonded Hz-H₂O complex. By the analysis of representative trajectories, detailed insight into the interplay of various nonadiabatic electronic transitions, electron transfer, proton transfer, and vibrational energy relaxation is obtained. The HzH radicals which are formed by the photoreduction of Hz can disproportionate to Hz and HzH₂ in an exothermic reaction with a low reaction barrier. The time scales and branching ratios of competing channels in H-atom photodetachment from the HzH₂ molecule also were explored with ab initio surface-hopping simulations. These results delineate for the first time a quantitatively supported scenario of water oxidation and hydrogen evolution with a molecular carbon nitride photocatalyst.

Revealing the role of excited state proton transfer (ESPT) in excited state hydrogen transfer (ESHT): systematic study in phenol-(NH3) n clusters

Excited State Hydrogen Transfer (ESHT), proposed at the end of the 20th century by the corresponding authors, has been observed in many neutral or protonated molecules and become a new paradigm to understand excited state dynamics/photochemistry of aromatic molecules. For example, a significant number of photoinduced proton-transfer reactions from X–H bonds have been re-defined as ESHT, including those of phenol, indole, tryptophan, aromatic amino acid cations and so on. Photo-protection mechanisms of biomolecules, such as isolated nucleic acids of DNA, are also discussed in terms of ESHT. Therefore, a systematic and up-to-date description of ESHT mechanism is important for researchers in chemistry, biology and related fields. In this review, we will present a general model of ESHT which unifies the excited state proton transfer (ESPT) and the ESHT mechanisms and reveals the hidden role of ESPT in controlling the reaction rate of ESHT. For this purpose, we give an overview of experimental and theoretical work on the excited state dynamics of phenol–(NH₃)_n clusters and related molecular systems. The dynamics has a significant dependence on the number of solvent molecules in the molecular cluster. Three-color picosecond time-resolved IR/near IR spectroscopy has revealed that ESHT becomes an electron transfer followed by a proton transfer in highly solvated clusters. The systematic change from ESHT to decoupled electron/proton transfer according to the number of solvent molecules is rationalized by a general model of ESHT including the role of ESPT.

A general model of excited state hydrogen transfer (ESHT) which unifies ESHT and the excited state proton transfer (ESPT) is presented from experimental and theoretical works on phenol–(NH₃)_n. The hidden role of ESPT is revealed.

Influence of the N atom position on the excited state photodynamics of protonated azaindole

We present a study of the photofragmentation of three protonated azaindole molecules - 7-azaindole, 6-azaindole, and 5-azaindole - consisting of fused pyrrole-pyridine bicyclic aromatic systems, in which the pyridinic (protonated) nitrogen heteroatom is located at the 7, 6, and 5 positions, respectively. Photofragmentation electronic spectra of the isolated aforementioned azaindolinium cations reveal that their photodynamics extends over timescales covering nine orders of magnitude and provide evidence about the resultant fragmentation pathways. Moreover, we show how the position of the heteroatom in the aromatic skeleton influences the excited state energetics, fragmentation pathways, and fragmentation timescales. Computed ab initio adiabatic transition energies are used to assist the assignation of the spectra, while geometry optimisation in the excited electronic states as well as ab initio calculations along the potential surfaces demonstrate the role of ππ*/πσ* coupling and/or large geometry changes in the dynamics of these species. Evidence supporting the formation of Dewar valence isomers as intermediates involved in sub-picosecond relaxation processes is discussed.

Excited-State Dynamics Affected by Switching of a Hydrogen-Bond Network in Hydrated Aminopyrazine Clusters

The cluster structures of hydrated aminopyrazines, APz-(H₂O)_n=2-4, in supersonic jets have been investigated measuring the size-selected electronic and vibrational spectra and determined with the aid of quantum chemical calculations. The APz-(H₂O)₂ structure is assigned as a cyclic N1 type where a homodromic hydrogen-bond chain starts from the amino group and ends at the 1-position nitrogen atom of the pyrazine moiety, corresponding to 2-aminopyridine-(H₂O)₂. On the other hand, APz-(H₂O)_n=3,4 has a linear hydrogen-bond network ending at the 4-position one (N4), which resembles 3-aminopyridine-(H₂O)_n=3,4. The hydrogen-bond network switching from the N1 type to the N4 one provides the accompanying red shifts of the S₁-S₀ electronic transition that are entirely consistent with those of the corresponding 2-aminopyridine and 3-aminopyridine clusters and also shows the drastically strengthened fluorescence intensity of origin bands in the electronic spectrum. The significant change in the excited-state dynamics is explored by the fluorescence lifetime measurement and the time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) calculation. It is suggested that the drastic elongation of fluorescence lifetimes is due to the change in the electronic structure of the first excited state from nπ* to ππ*, resulting in the decreasing spin-orbit coupling to T₁ (ππ*).

Photooxidation of water with heptazine-based molecular photocatalysts: Insights from spectroscopy and computational chemistry

We present a conspectus of recent joint spectroscopic and computational studies that provided novel insight into the photochemistry of hydrogen-bonded complexes of the heptazine (Hz) chromophore with hydroxylic substrate molecules (water and phenol). It was found that a functionalized derivative of Hz, tri-anisole-heptazine (TAHz), can photooxidize water and phenol in a homogeneous photochemical reaction. This allows the exploration of the basic mechanisms of the proton-coupled electron-transfer (PCET) process involved in the water photooxidation reaction in well-defined complexes of chemically tunable molecular chromophores with chemically tunable substrate molecules. The unique properties of the excited electronic states of the Hz molecule and derivatives thereof are highlighted. The potential energy landscape relevant for the PCET reaction has been characterized by judicious computational studies. These data provided the basis for the demonstration of rational laser control of PCET reactions in TAHz-phenol complexes by pump-push-probe spectroscopy, which sheds light on the branching mechanisms occurring by the interaction of nonreactive locally excited states of the chromophore with reactive intermolecular charge-transfer states. Extrapolating from these results, we propose a general scenario that unravels the complex photoinduced water-splitting reaction into simple sequential light-driven one-electron redox reactions followed by simple dark radical-radical recombination reactions.