Organic-Polyoxometalate Co-Crystal-Derived Mesoporous Metal Carbides/Nitrides for Hydrogen Production from Seawater

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The aim of this project is to achieve a scalable synthesis of mesoporous metal carbide/nitride-based hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalysts with high Mo/W content and crystallinity. We propose a novel precipitation method to synthesize organic-polyoxometallate (POM) co-crystals and organic-POM-silica composites which can be directly transferred into mesoporous Mo/W carbides/nitrides. In these co-crystal structures, the POM ensures a high Mo/W content while different amino-functionalized benzene derivatives serve as coordination linkers and carbon/nitrogen sources. Silica nanoparticles will be added to act as a template and generate mesoporosity in the final materials. In the first step, the structure and morphology of the organic-POM crystals will be fully explored. Furthermore, the influence of the chosen synthetic conditions on the formation and structure of these organic-POM-silica composites will be elucidated. After carbonization and template removal, the resulting mesoporous Mo/W carbides/nitrides will be applied as catalysts for HER first in standard electrolytes, and then applied to assemble water splitting electrolyzers. Overall, this proposal contains several research objectives starting from the selection of suitable organic molecules to obtain organic-POM co-crystals and controlling/optimizing their morphology, composition, and crystallinity, to the fabrication of mesoporous Mo/W carbide/nitrides therefrom, and finally electrochemical and electrocatalytic tests of these materials for water electrolysis with the specific objective to achieve hydrogen evolution from seawater.