Poly(dibenzothiophene-S,S-dioxide) with visible light-induced hydrogen evolution rate up to 44.2 mmol h−1 g−1 promoted by K2HPO4

Conjugated polymers have recently emerged as encouraging metal-free photocatalysts for solar energy conversion under visible light irradiation. Unfortunately, photocatalytic activities of the current polymers are still inadequate. Herein, we present a simple but quite attractive conjugated homopolymer (PDBTSO) based a dibenzothiophene-S,S-dioxide moiety. The introduction of sulphonyl group to a polyfluorene-like backbone can cause richly available active sites and lead to the efficient separation of photoexcited charge carriers, thus yielding impressive photocatalytic performance. Furthermore, we explored a natural “phosphorylation” strategy for increasing photocatalytic hydrogen production over PDBTSO. Remarkably, an extremely high hydrogen evolution rate of 44.2 mmol h −1  g −1 was achieved with the optimum addition of K 2 HPO 4 under visible light irradiation.