Zheng Haihong, Yang Fang, Xiong Tuzhi, Adekoya David, Huang Yongchao, Balogun M-Sadeeq Jie Tang
Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, P. R. China.
College of Materials Science and Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2020 Dec 23;12(51):57093-57101. doi: 10.1021/acsami.0c16938. Epub 2020 Dec 9.
The water dissociation step (HO + M + e → M - H + OH) is a crucial one toward achieving high-performance hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). The application of electronic conducting polymers (ECPs), such as polypyrrole (PPy), as the electrocatalyst for HER is rarely reported because of their poor adsorption energy per water molecule, which hinders the Volmer step. Herein, we strongly enrich PPy hollow microspheres (PPy-HMS) with attractive HER activity by enhancing their hydrophilic properties through hybridization with good water affinity SiO. The as-prepared PPy-coated SiO (PPy@SiO-HMS) achieves a current density of 10 mA cm at -123 mV, which is lower than that of pristine PPy-HMS (-192 mV). Raman and X-ray photospectroscopy analyses reveal that the enhanced HER catalytic capability can be attributed to the strong electronic couplings between PPy and SiO, and this improves the adsorption energy per water molecule and in turn accelerates the water dissociation kinetics on PPy. This work highlights the potential application of low-cost ECPs as promising electrocatalysts for water electrolysis.
水离解步骤（HO + M + e → M - H + OH）是实现高性能析氢反应（HER）的关键一步。电子导电聚合物（ECPs），如聚吡咯（PPy），由于其每个水分子的吸附能较差，阻碍了Volmer步骤，因此很少被报道用作HER的电催化剂。在此，我们通过与具有良好水亲和力的SiO杂交来增强PPy空心微球（PPy-HMS）的亲水性，从而强烈富集具有吸引人的HER活性的PPy空心微球。所制备的PPy包覆的SiO（PPy@SiO-HMS）在-123 mV时实现了10 mA cm的电流密度，这低于原始PPy-HMS（-192 mV）的电流密度。拉曼光谱和X射线光电子能谱分析表明，增强的HER催化能力可归因于PPy与SiO之间的强电子耦合，这提高了每个水分子的吸附能，进而加速了PPy上的水离解动力学。这项工作突出了低成本ECPs作为有前景的水电解电催化剂的潜在应用。
