Hydrogen production through the reduction of water has emerged as an important strategy for the storage of renewable energy in chemical bonds. One attractive scenario for the construction of efficient devices for electrochemical splitting of water requires the attachment of stable and active hydrogen evolving catalysts to electrode surfaces, which remains a significant challenge. We demonstrate here the successful integration of cobalt dithiolene catalysts into a metal-organic surface to generate very active electrocatalytic cathode materials for hydrogen generation from water. These surfaces display high catalyst loadings and remarkable stability even under very acidic aqueous solutions.

Splitting water to hydrogen and oxygen is a promising approach for storing energy from intermittent renewables, such as solar power. Efficient, scalable solar-driven electrolysis devices require active electrocatalysts made from earth-abundant elements. In this mini-review, we discuss recent investigations of homogeneous and heterogeneous hydrogen evolution electrocatalysts, with emphasis on our own work on cobalt and iron complexes and nickel-molybdenum alloys.

Two-dimensional (2D) metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have received a great deal of attention due to their relatively high charge carrier mobility and low resistivity. Here we report on the temperature-dependent charge transport properties of a 2D cobalt 2,3,6,7,10,11-triphenylenehexathiolate framework. Variable temperature resistivity studies reveal a transition from a semiconducting to a metallic phase with decreasing temperature, which is unprecedented in MOFs. We find this transition to be highly dependent on the film thickness and the amount of solvent trapped in the pores, with density functional theory (DFT) calculations of the electronic-structure supporting the complex metallic conductivity of the material. These results identify the first experimentally observed MOF that exhibits band-like metallic conductivity.

Several cobalt complexes catalyze the evolution of hydrogen from acidic solutions, both homogeneously and at electrodes. The detailed molecular mechanisms of these transformations remain unresolved, largely owing to the fact that key reactive intermediates have eluded detection. One method of stabilizing reactive intermediates involves minimizing the overall reaction free-energy change. Here, we report a new cobalt(I) complex that reacts with tosylic acid to evolve hydrogen with a driving force of just 30 meV/Co. Protonation of CoI produces a transient CoIII-H complex that was characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The CoIII-H intermediate decays by second-order kinetics with an inverse dependence on acid concentration. Analysis of the kinetics suggests that CoIII-H produces hydrogen by two competing pathways: a slower homolytic route involving two CoIII-H species and a dominant heterolytic channel in which a highly reactive CoII-H transient is generated by CoI reduction of CoIII-H.

The bioinspired incorporation of pendant proton donors into transition metal catalysts is a promising strategy for converting environmentally deleterious CO2 to higher energy products. However, the mechanism of proton transfer in these systems is poorly understood. Herein, we present a series of cobalt complexes with varying pendant secondary and tertiary amines in the ligand framework with the aim of disentangling the roles of the first and second coordination spheres in CO2 reduction catalysis. Electrochemical and kinetic studies indicate that the rate of catalysis shows a first-order dependence on acid, CO2, and the number of pendant secondary amines, respectively. Density functional theory studies explain the experimentally observed trends and indicate that pendant secondary amines do not directly transfer protons to CO2, but instead bind acid molecules from solution. Taken together, these results suggest a mechanism in which noncooperative pendant amines facilitate a hydrogen-bonding network that enables direct proton transfer from acid to the activated CO2 substrate.