碱金属阳离子对铁卟啉电催化CO2还原的影响

电催化CO2还原反应(CO2RR)可以有效地将温室气体转化为燃料或高附加值的化学品,从而缓解目前人类所面临的环境问题和能源危机,其中开发高效的电催化剂是至关重要的环节.近年来,研究者设计了多种高效的过渡金属配合物(包括Mn,Fe,Co,Ni和Cu)用作CO2RR分子电催化剂,并研究了其中的构效关系,例如,在分子内修饰质子给体取代基或电荷取代基可以显著提高CO2RR的催化效率.而电催化CO2RR的实际应用要在含有碱金属阳离子(例如,Na+和K+)的电解质水溶液中进行,但在已有报道中,很少有关于碱金属阳离子对CO2RR的影响.在众多的分子催化剂中,铁卟啉可以以较高的催化活性和选择性实现CO2到CO的转化.重要的是,卟啉环的刚性结构、稳定的配位环境及其骨架上官能团的易于修饰性成为研究CO2RR的构效关系的理想分子模型.基于以上考虑,本文以铁卟啉配合物为分子模型,研究了碱金属阳离子Na+和K+对电催化CO2RR的影响.首先,本文合成了简单的A4型铁卟啉化合物四-(3,4,5-三甲氧基苯基)-铁卟啉(FeP).并采用核磁共振、质谱分析、单晶衍射等表征手段对化合物进行了表征,在含有电解质的DMF溶液中测试其电催化CO2还原性能.实验结果表明,FeP可以实现高效的电催化CO2还原,催化电流随FeP的浓度呈线性增加,说明催化反应速率与催化剂浓度呈一级反应速率关系.较长时间的恒电压电解实验以及电解前后化合物的紫外-可见光谱证实了FeP的稳定性.通过气相色谱对产物进行分析,CO为主要产物,法拉第效率为95％.以上结果均表明,FeP是一个优良的分子催化剂.在此基础上,本文还发现加入Na+和K+均可以显著提升催化活性,而K+的加入使催化电流的提升更加显著,这可能是由于K+在溶液中的迁移速度比Na+更快.基于此实验现象,本文通过在FeP的第二配位层修饰1-氨-18-冠-6-醚官能团(N18C6),合成了N18C6-FeP化合物.结果表明,由于N18C6与Na+/K+之间的配位作用,使得N18C6-FeP比FeP具有更好的电催化CO2RR活性.研究表明,催化活性的提升归因于碱金属阳离子能够通过静电相互作用稳定Fe-CO2中间体.1H NMR谱证实了N18C6基团的确能够螯合碱金属阳离子.本文研究证明了碱金属阳离子对改善电催化CO2RR的积极作用,对于进一步深入了解CO2RR催化反应机理和未来合理的设计高效催化剂也都具有重要意义.

AlkalimetalcationeffectsonelectrocatalyticCO2reductionwithironporphyrins

The electrocatalytic CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) has attracted increasing attention in recent years. Practical electrocatalysis of CO2RR must be carried out in aqueous solutions containing elec-trolytes of alkali metal cations such as sodium and potassium. Although considerable efforts have been made to design efficient electrocatalysts for CO2RR and to investigate the structure–activity relationships using molecular model complexes, only a few studies have been investigated the effect of alkali metal cations on electrocatalytic CO2RR. In this study, we report the effect of alkali metal cations (Na+ and K+) on electrocatalytic CO2RR with Fe porphyrins. By running CO2RR electrocataly-sis in dimethylformamide (DMF), we found that the addition of Na+ or K+ considerably improves the catalytic activity of Fe chloride tetrakis(3,4,5-trimethoxyphenyl)porphyrin (FeP). Based on this result, we synthesized an Fe porphyrin N18C6-FeP bearing a tethered 1-aza-18-crown-6-ether (N18C6) group at the second coordination sphere of the Fe site. We showed that with the tethered N18C6 to bind Na+ or K+, N18C6-FeP is more active than FeP for electrocatalytic CO2RR. This work demonstrates the positive effect of alkali metal cations to improve CO2RR electrocatalysis, which is valuable for the rational design of new efficient catalysts.