Tuning Redox Active Polyoxometalates for Efficient Electron-Coupled Proton-Buffer-Mediated Water Splitting |
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| Authors: | Jie Lei Jun-Jie Yang Ting Liu Ru-Ming Yuan Ding-Rong Deng Prof?Dr Ming-Sen Zheng Prof?Dr Jia-Jia Chen Prof?Dr Leroy Cronin Prof?Dr Quan-Feng Dong |
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| Institution: | 1. State Key Laboratory for Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, Department of Chemistry, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, iChem (Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials), Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, 361005 P. R. China;2. College of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, Jimei University, Xiamen, Fujian, 361005 P. R. China |
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| Abstract: | We present strategies to tune the redox properties of polyoxometalate clusters to enhance the electron-coupled proton-buffer-mediated water splitting process, in which the evolution of hydrogen and oxygen can occur in different forms and is separated in time and space. By substituting the heteroatom template in the Keggin-type polyoxometalate cluster, H6ZnW12O40, it is possible to double the number of electrons and protonation in the redox reactions (from two to four). This increase can be achieved with better matching of the energy levels as indicated by the redox potentials, compared to the ones of well-studied H3PW12O40 and H4SiW12O40. This means that H6ZnW12O40 can act as a high-performance redox mediator in an electrolytic cell for the on-demand generation of hydrogen with a high decoupling efficiency of 95.5 % and an electrochemical energy efficiency of 83.3 %. Furthermore, the H6ZnW12O40 cluster also exhibits an excellent cycling behaviour and redox reversibility with almost 100 % H2-mediated capacity retention during 200 cycles and a high coulombic efficiency >92 % each cycle at 30 mA cm?2. |
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| Keywords: | electron-coupled proton buffer H2 storage and transportation polyoxometalates water splitting |
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