Two one-dimensional silver(I) coordination polymer modified electrodes for hydrogen evolution reaction and H2O2 recognition

Abstract

Two new Ag(I) coordination polymers (CPs), namely: [Ag4(m-MOPhHIDC)2(BBM)2]n (1) {[Ag(BBM)](NO3)}n (2) (m-MOPhHIDC = m-methoxyanisaldehyde imidazole dicarboxylate, BBM = 2,2-(1,4-butanediyl)bis-1,3-benzimidazole), have been synthesized by solvothermal method and characterized. Structural analyses show that both complexes are one-dimensional chain coordination polymers, but the one-dimensional chains have different shapes, in which CP-1 is "V" shaped, and CP-2 is "wave-shaped". The electrochemical properties of composite electrodes CE-1 and CE-2 formed by mixing two coordination polymers with carbon paste electrodes were investigated respectively. Electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution characteristics of two composite electrodes were investigated by linear scanning voltammetry (LSV) in 0.5 M H2SO4 electrolyte, at 298 K the results show that when the current density reaches 10 mA cm−2, their overpotential positively shifted by 284 and 289 mV compared to CE (905 mV). And the Tafel slope of the CE-1 and CE-2 was 162 and 164 mV dec−1, respectively. The CE-1 exhibited superior electrocatalytic ability than CE-2, which may be attributed to the different coordination modes of central silver ions in the two CPs. In addition, the composite electrodes CE-1 and CE-2 also have a good identification effect on H2O2, and the detection limits of 36.7 and 6.2 μM in the linear range of 0.5-4000 μM were determined by chronoamperometry. Results show that the Ag(I) CPs can be used as effective dualfunctional electrocatalysts.