Improving the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution of UiO-67 by incorporating Ce4+-coordinated bipyridinedicarboxylate ligands

UiO-67 is a Zr-based metal–organic framework (MOF) containing an organic linker namely, the dianion of biphenyl-4,4′-dicarboxylic acid (bpdc). Ce 4+ metal ions (0.02 Ce to Zr atom ratio) were incorporated into UiO-67 via partially replacing bpdc with the dianion of 2,2′-bipyridine-5,5′-dicarboxylic acid (bpydc); thus, the latter forms a bpydc-Ce complex. The resulting product (i.e., UiO-67-Ce) demonstrated a photocatalytic hydrogen evolution rate that was over 10 times higher than that of UiO-67. Through this modification, a new energy transfer channel is opened up. The energy transfer between the bpdc and bpydc-Ce ligands (i.e., from excited bpdc to bpydc-Ce) weakened the recombination of the charge carriers, which was confirmed by photoluminescence, emission lifetime, and transient absorption measurements. This study presents a new way to construct highly efficient MOF photocatalysts.