Tuning and mechanistic insights of metal chalcogenide molecular catalysts for the hydrogen-evolution reaction

McAllister, J., Bandeira, N. A.G., McGlynn, J. C., Ganin, A. Y. , Song, Y.-F., Bo, C. and Miras, H. N. (2019) Tuning and mechanistic insights of metal chalcogenide molecular catalysts for the hydrogen-evolution reaction. Nature Communications, 10, 370. (doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-08208-4) (PMID:30670694) (PMCID:PMC6342911)

Abstract

The production of hydrogen through water splitting using earth-abundant metal catalysts is a promising pathway for converting solar energy into chemical fuels. However, existing approaches for fine stoichiometric control, structural and catalytic modification of materials by appropriate choice of earth abundant elements are either limited or challenging. Here we explore the tuning of redox active immobilised molecular metal-chalcoxide electrocatalysts by controlling the chalcogen or metal stoichiometry and explore critical aspects of the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) shows that stoichiometric and structural control leads to the evolution of hydrogen at low overpotential with no catalyst degradation over 1000 cycles. Density functional calculations reveal the effect of the electronic and structural features and confer plausibility to the existence of a unimolecular mechanism in the HER process based on the tested hypotheses. We anticipate these findings to be a starting point for further exploration of molecular catalytic systems.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Ganin, Dr Alexey and McGlynn, Jessica and Moiras, Professor Haralampos and McAllister, Mr James
• Authors: McAllister, J., Bandeira, N. A.G., McGlynn, J. C., Ganin, A. Y., Song, Y.-F., Bo, C., and Miras, H. N.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Chemistry
• Journal Name: Nature Communications
• Publisher: Nature Research
• ISSN: 2041-1723
• ISSN (Online): 2041-1723
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2019 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Nature Communications
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License
• Data DOI: 10.19061/iochem-bd-1-99

Project Code	Award No	Project Name	Principal Investigator	Funder's Name	Funder Ref	Lead Dept
72741	1	Modular assembly of high temperature superconductors from dimensionally reduced iron-based chalcogenide blocks	Alexey Ganin	Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)	EP/P001653/1	SCHOOL OF CHEMISTRY
300591	0	Programmable Molecular Metal Oxides (PMMOs) - From Fundamentals to Application	Leroy Cronin	Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)	EP/R01308X/1	Chemistry