Solar‐light‐responsive photocatalyst technology, which offers energy harvesting directly from solar light, holds great potential for both water treatment and environmental purification. Lately, low‐dimensional conjugated polymers nanostructures, among them those of poly(diphenylbutadiyne) (PDPB), have emerged as highly efficient photocatalysts under visible light. Our work reveals direct on‐surface photosynthesis of poly‐bis(pyridyl)butadiyne (PBPyB) from simple BpyB precursors. The BPyB monomers are first self‐assembled on the graphite surface into highly ordered 2D‐nanoarchitectures, and then irradiated with either UV or UV–visible light. The large‐scale transformation of the monomers into long straight 1D‐conjugated polymer wires is revealed by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). An inner‐polymer trans positioning of the pyridine moieties is observed for the first time at the submolecular level. Density functional theory (DFT)‐calculated polymer electron densities of states (DOS) show a perfect match with the STM results and confirm the formation of conjugated PBPyB. This polymer (directly polymerized on a transparent glass surface) shows good photocatalytic activity for degradation of model pollutants in water.
Wu et al. (Sun,) studied this question.