Highly efficient electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction on carbonized porous conducting polymers

Abstract

A rational design of an efficient and inexpensive electrocatalyst for water splitting still remains a challenge. Porous conducting polymers are attractive materials which not only provide a high surface area for electrocatalysis but also absorb light which can be harnessed in photoelectrocatalysis. Here, a novel and inexpensive electrochemical approach is developed to obtain nanoporous conducting copolymers with tunable light absorbance and porosity. By fine-tuning the copolymer composition and upon heat treatment, an excellent electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) was achieved in alkaline solution with an overpotential of just 77 mV to obtain a current density of 10 mA cm−2. Such an overpotential is remarkably low compared with other reported values for polymers in an alkaline medium. The nanoporous copolymer developed here shows a great promise of using metal-free electrocatalysts and brings about new avenues for exploitation of these porous conducting polymers.