Perylene Imide Supermolecule Promote Oxygen to Superoxide Radical for Ultrafast Photo-Oxidation of 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural

The Photocatalytic preparation of 2, 5-diformylfuran (DFF) from biomass 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), is subjected to a low conversion efficiency. In view of superoxide radical is a crucial reactive oxygen species, we suggest an ultra-fast selective oxidation reaction achieved by modulating the photocatalytic oxygen reduction processes. Herein, we developed a novel photocatalytic system by anchoring perylene imide supramolecular as an oxygen reduction co-catalyst on ZnIn2S4. The functionalized perylene imide supramolecular as an active site greatly accelerates the generation of superoxide radical by absorbing oxygen while concentrating the photogenerated electrons of ZnIn2S4. Compared with pure ZnIn2S4, SA-PDI/ZnIn2S4 showed a more excellent photocatalytic performance under mild conditions (photo-oxidation kinetics increased by 30 times). Satisfactorily, the HMF transformation frequency is 1952 μmol·g-1·h-1 and is almost an order of magnitude higher than the photocatalytic HMF aerobic oxidation technique reported. This work open up a perspective for the design of photocatalytic systems for high added-value compounds production.