Intermingled Coordination Environments Enable Defect‐Engineered Metal–Polyphenol/G‐Quadruplex Hydrogel for Enhanced N <sub>2</sub> ‐to‐NH <sub>3</sub> Photoconversion
Manipulating the coordination environment through hetero-ligand incorporation induces controlled defects at catalytically active sites, offering a powerful route to regulate electronic structure and reactivity. Here, we present a supramolecular approach to defect engineering within a soft hydrogel matrix by confining a Bi<sup>3+</sup>-caffeic acid complex within a guanosine monophosphate-based G-quadruplex hydrogel. This confinement not only breaks local coordination symmetry and generates oxygen-vacancy-rich heterojunctions but also emulates the active-site environments of enzymes. The G-quadruplex fibrillar scaffold provides ion-channel-like pathways that facilitate charge transport, enhance substrate diffusion, and promote selective adsorption, while confinement ensures the uniform dispersion of catalytic sites. Together, these synergistic effects result in an exceptional N<sub>2</sub> to NH<sub>3</sub> conversion of 905.2 µmol h<sup>-1</sup> g<sup>-1</sup> <sub>(cat)</sub> under visible light irradiation, 3.8 times higher than that of the pristine complex. This work introduces a versatile strategy that integrates defect engineering, heterojunction formation, and biomimetic confinement within a soft supramolecular assembly, establishing G-quadruplex hydrogels as a powerful platform for sustainable photocatalytic nitrogen fixation and beyond.
Authors
- Tarun Kumar Sahu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-9023-0700)
- Montu Gogoi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3319-4708)
- Tridib K. Sarma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5168-6327)
- Suryakamal Sarma
- Aditya Prasun
- Shaurya Aneja
Institutions
- Indian Institute of Management Indore (IN)
- Dibrugarh University (IN)
- Indian Institute of Technology Indore (IN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Small
- Published
- 2026-02-19
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202514925
- Primary Topic
- Ammonia Synthesis and Nitrogen Reduction
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00