Design and photophysical studies of iridium(iii)–cobalt(iii) dyads and their application for dihydrogen photo-evolution

We report several new dyads constituted of cationic iridium(III) photosensitizers and cobalt(III) catalyst connected via free pendant pyridine on the photosensitizers. These dyads were studied by X-ray crystallography, electrochemistry, absorption and emission spectroscopy as well as theoretical calculations and were shown to efficiently produce H2 under visible light irradiation. In every case, the dyad outperformed the equivalent system without a pendant pyridine. The dependence between irradiation wavelength and photocatalytic performances was also studied, with H2 being evolved with turn-over numbers up to 295, 251, 188 and 78 molH2 molPS−1 under blue, green, yellow and red light, respectively.