Professor Dong Ha Kim’s Team Develops Polarization-Selective Photocatalysis Technology — Published in Advanced Materials
- 작성처
- Date2026.01.30
- 4826
Professor Dong Ha Kim’s Team Develops Polarization-Selective Photocatalysis Technology — Published in Advanced Materials
A research team led by Professor Dong Ha Kim with the Department of Chemistry & Nanoscience at Ewha Womans University has developed the world’s first polarization-selective photocatalysis technology that uses the chirality of light to increase hydrogen production efficiency by up to twofold. This achievement fundamentally improves the long-standing limitations of solar-driven hydrogen production; namely, inefficient light absorption and charge loss. The results were published on January 15 in the internationally renowned materials science journal Advanced Materials (impact factor: 26.8).
Solar-driven hydrogen production has attracted attention as an eco-friendly energy technology; however, conventional photocatalysts have been limited by inefficient light absorption and charge recombination. Professor Kim’s research team introduced polarization, the directional property of light, into catalyst design and proposed a new principle for controlling charge-transfer pathways. The team synthesized chiral gold nanoparticles that selectively respond to right- and left-handed circular polarization (R-Au/C3N4 and L-Au/C3N4) through a light-induced growth method and confirmed a “chiral matching” effect in which hydrogen evolution significantly increases when the chirality of the catalyst matches the polarization of the incident light.
Time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) analysis showed that electron–hole recombination was suppressed and electron lifetime increased, while extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) analysis confirmed stronger Au–O bonding and the formation of active sites. This study experimentally demonstrated that the directional property of light can influence both charge transport and catalyst stability, marking a turning point for solar-driven hydrogen production technology.
The paper reporting these findings, titled “Polarization-Selective Efficient Hydrogen Evolution Reactions via Chiral Photocatalysis,” was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea’s Autonomous Priority Research Institute program, the National Research Laboratory (NRL 2.0) program, the BrainLink program, the Korea Basic Science Institute’s Basic Science Research Capacity Enhancement program (National Research Facilities and Equipment Center), and the global chemical company Syensqo.