Metal-Phosphide-Containing Porous Carbons Derived from an Ionic-Polymer Framework and Applied as Highly Efficient Electrochemical Catalysts for Water Splitting

Journal Reference

Advanced Functional Materials, Volume 25, Issue 25, pages 3899–3906, 2015.

Sheng Han¹, Yunlong Feng¹, Fan Zhang^2,*, Chongqing Yang², Zhaoquan Yao²,Wuxue Zhao², Feng Qiu^1,2, Lingyun Yang³, Yefeng Yao³, Xiaodong Zhuang^2,*, Xinliang Feng^2,4

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1. School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Shanghai Institute of Technology, Shanghai, P. R. China

2. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, P. R. China

3. Physics Department & Shanghai Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance, East China Normal University, Shanghai, P. R. China

4. Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany

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Abstract

One novel phosphorus-containing porous polymer (HC-TVP), was high efficiently prepared from tris(4-vinylphenyl)phosphane by radical polymerization, which can be easily ionized to form ionic porous polymer under the treatment of hydrogen iodide.  Upon ionic exchange, transition metal-containing anions, such as tetrathiomolybdate (MoS₄^2-), and hexacyanoferrate (Fe(CN)₆^3-), were successfuly loaded into the framework of the porous polymer to replace the original iodide anions and form metal-coordinated anions contained polymer frameworks (HT-Mets, Met=Mo, Fe). After pyrolysis under hydrogen atmosphere, HT-Mets were efficiently converted to metal phosphide-embedded porous carbons (MetP@PCs, Met=Mo, Fe) on a large scale. This approach provides a convenient pathway to the controlled preparation of  metal phosphide-loaded porous carbon composites. The as-made MetP@PCs exhibits superior electrocatalytic activity for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) under acidic condition. Of these, MoP@PC with a low loading of 0.24 mgcm⁻² (on glass carbon electrode) afforded  an iR-corrected current density of  up to 10 mA cm⁻² at 51 mV vs. RHE and a very low Tafel slope of 45 mVdec⁻¹, in rotating disk measurements under N₂ saturated condition.

© 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim 

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