• ●Institution: Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences (CeNS), Bengaluru — founded 1991 by Prof. S. Chandrasekhar, brought under the Department of Science and Technology in 2003 and renamed CeNS in 2014.
• ●The material: aspartic acid-functionalised perylene diimide (PDI), self-assembling in water into two-dimensional nanosheets.
• ●How it works: the amino acid drives extended hydrogen bonding and raises the molecular dipole moment, while the PDI chromophore drives pi-pi stacking and light absorption — together improving charge separation and transport.
• ●Result: nearly 18% higher photocurrent than the bulk material during solar-driven water splitting, verified by electrochemical measurements and density functional theory calculations.
• ●Why it matters: most photocatalysts today use inorganic semiconductors or precious metals; a metal-free organic route avoids scarce and expensive inputs.
• ●Photocatalytic water splitting uses light energy on a catalyst to break water into hydrogen and oxygen — hydrogen burnt or used in a fuel cell yields only water.
• ●Green hydrogen is made from water using renewable energy; grey hydrogen comes from fossil fuels such as natural gas with the carbon released, and blue hydrogen is the same fossil route with carbon capture and storage.
• ●India's National Green Hydrogen Mission, approved on 3 January 2023 with an outlay of ₹19,744 crore, targets at least 5 million metric tonnes of green hydrogen a year and about 125 GW of added renewable capacity by 2030.

In the CeNS study, the self-assembled organic material generated how much higher photocurrent than its bulk counterpart during solar-driven water splitting?