Prof. Licheng Sun’s group in the Center of Artificial Photosynthesis for Solar Fuels at Westlake University published a research paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The paper is titled “Closing Kok’s cycle of nature’s water oxidation catalysis”.
The research reported a likely missing link for closing the Kok cycle, i.e., restoring the first catalytic state. The formation of closed-cubane intermediates with all hexa-coordinate Mn is observed, which would undergo proton release, water dissociation, and ligand transfer to produce the open-cubane structure of the S0 state. The previously unknown structural isomerism in the S0 state is also identified.
Dr. Yu Guo from Westlake University is the first author. Prof. Licheng Sun is the corresponding author.