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.