Investigation on the Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution Performance of Coordination Polymer-Derived Materials: Roles of Organic Ligands

By optimizing the ligands, the structure of a coordination polymer can be adjusted to realize the regulation and optimization of the properties of the coordination polymer materials. Coordination polymers not only exhibit a variety of molecular topologies but also have good application prospects in adsorption, separation, catalysis, photoelectric magnetism, and so on. Recently, coordination polymers are being well used in precursors for electrocatalysts because of their high surface area and porous structure. Therefore, we selected two ligands with a similar structure in which the two coordination groups were located at the paracene and intersite of the benzene ring, that is, 4-(1H-1,2,4-triazol-1-yl) benzoic acid (Hbza) and 3-(1H-1,2,4-triazol-1-yl) benzoic acid (3-Hbza). We found that there are obvious differences in the crystal structure between Zn-bza and Zn-3bza, which is due to the different relative position between the carboxyl group and the triazole group leading to the formation of different interactions, so we further studied the performance of their derived materials and found that the derivative materials of the coordination polymer formed by 3-Hbza have a better electrocatalytic performance. This paper provides a strong support for the idea that a slight change in the structure of the ligand will affect the final structure and thus the final performance.