This three-year award supports US-France cooperative research on charge transfer photochemistry of rhenium complexes. It involves research groups of Guillermo Ferraudi of the University of Notre Dame and Mohamed Sarakha of the Photochemistry Laboratory at the Universite Blaise Pascale. The investigators will study competing photochemical and photophysical processes in rhenium that result from the coexistence of metal-to-ligand and ligand-to-ligand charge transfer states. Practical applications of these reactions to problems of water decontamination and CO2 (carbon dioxide) fixation will be explored. The US research group brings to this collaboration expertise in the reaction mechanism of fast photochemical and thermal reactions. This is complemented by the French group's expertise in inorganic photochemistry as applied to continuous photolysis and in environmental photochemistry. The project will advance understanding of the process of charge separation and formation of photochemical intermediates which can be utilized in environmental applications.
