Thienothiophene and triphenylbenzene based electroactive conjugated porous polymer for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR)

Abstract

Catalysts based on metal-free conjugated porous polymers (CPPs) are still rare for electrochemical oxygen reduction reactions (ORR). In this study, a conjugated porous polymer, TT-TPB, based on thieno[3,2-b]thiophene (TT) and triphenylbenzene (TPB), was synthe-sized applying palladium(0) catalyzed Suzuki coupling reaction and its ORR activity was investigated in alkaline condition. It demonstrated comparable electrocatalytic performance of approximate to 0.89-0.9 V Fonset vs RHE with the commercially available Pt/C. Density-functional theory (DFT) calculations revealed that TT-TPB featured efficient electrocatalytic active sites derived from volumetric, areal, and O2 adsorbing calculations, which were in line with the experimental results. Moreover, semiconducting and surface properties of TT-TPB were investigated in detail using electro-chemical and spectrophotometric techniques. This work shows the potential application of thienothiophene-based metal-free CPP in the electrochemical conversion process.