Abstract
Conjugated polymers with stabilizing coordination units for single-site catalytic centers are excellent candidates to minimize the use of expensive noble metal electrode materials. In this study, conjugated metallopolymer, POS[Cu], was synthesized and fully characterized by means of spectroscopical, electrochemical, and photophysical methods. The copper metallopolymer was found to be highly active for the electrocatalytic hydrogen generation (HER) in an aqueous solution at pH 7.4 and overpotentials at 300 mV vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE). Compared to the platinum electrode, the obtained overpotential is only 100 mV higher. The photoelectrochemical tests revealed that the complexation of the conjugated polymer POS turned its intrinsically electron-accepting (p-type) properties into an electron-donor (n-type) with photocurrent responses ten times higher than the organic photoelectrode.
Highlights
Conducting and/or conjugated polymers (CPs) are promising materials for organic photovoltaics [1,2,3,4,5]
In the field of metallopolymer or metallosupramolecular polymers, where conducting polymers are complexed with single-site metal centers, there is a lack of research to tap into applications, where the use of metals is indispensable [7]
For the synthesis of the polymer POS, we followed the protocol reported by Jenekhe [19,23]
Summary
Conducting and/or conjugated polymers (CPs) are promising materials for organic photovoltaics [1,2,3,4,5] Beyond their potential use in photovoltaics, CPs are already successfully implemented in many other commercialized electronic devices [6]. Among the conductive/conjugated polymers, the poly(heteroarylene) methines (PHAMs) are well suited to host a series of transition metals into the conjugated polymer backbone. Further to this, their ease of synthesis and structural modification makes them attractive to synthesize metallopolymers for applications of choice. HER atand overpotentials close a Pt electrode activities, the organic/inorganic hybrid material showed an increase of photocurrent and a and at neutral pH.
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