Structural regulation of Co-based coordination polymers by adjusting solvent polarity toward electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance

Abstract

A solvothermal synthesis method using Co(NO₃)₂·6H₂O, thiophene dicarboxylic acid (H₂tpdc), and 1,4-bis(1-imidazoly) benzene (bib) as raw materials was reported to control the growth of coordination polymers by adjusting the solvent polarity. Then, three coordination polymers with the same conformational unit and ligand and different dimensions were synthesized under three different solvent polarities. In addition, the electrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) properties of compounds 2D and 3D after high temperature pyrolysis were also investigated. The results show that compound 2D showed a better HER performance than compound 3D. We explained the reasons that compound 2D showed a better HER performance through detailed characterization.