Water-soluble fullerenol-mediated electron transfer in molecular systems toward enhanced solar hydrogen production.

We present here that visible-light-induced electron transfer from an excited dye to an in situ generated Pt cocatalyst can be promoted by employing water-soluble fullerenol (C 60 (OH) 24 ) as an electron mediator, and as a result, the fullerenol-based molecular system shows a 3 times higher H 2 evolution activity than C 60 (OH) 24 -free system.