Engineering organic polymers as emerging sustainable materials for powerful electrocatalysts

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Electrochemistry
• Catalysis

Background:

• Sustainable electrochemical energy conversion is crucial for clean energy generation and reducing carbon emissions.
• Earth-abundant catalysts are gaining traction for technologies like fuel cells, batteries, and electrolyzers.
• Organic polymer catalysts offer advantages such as pyrolysis-free synthesis, tunable properties, and high stability.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide a comprehensive overview of recent advances in organic polymers as electrocatalysts.
• To discuss design principles, engineering strategies, and structure-performance correlations of polymer catalysts.
• To outline breakthroughs in polymer catalysis for key electrochemical reactions and future perspectives.

Main Methods:

• Review of literature on polymer catalyst design and engineering.
• Analysis of molecular and macromolecular tailoring strategies (heteroatom, metal atom, chain, topology, composition).
• Examination of structure-performance relationships and electrocatalytic mechanisms.

Main Results:

• Organic polymers exhibit significant progress as electrocatalysts due to tunable properties and stability.
• Engineering strategies at molecular and macromolecular levels enhance catalyst performance.
• Polymer catalysts show promise for oxygen reduction, hydrogen evolution, CO2 reduction, oxygen evolution, and hydrogen oxidation reactions.

Conclusions:

• Organic polymers represent a promising class of materials for advanced electrocatalysts in sustainable energy applications.
• Further research into rational design and understanding of mechanisms can unlock their full potential.
• This review offers guidelines for developing next-generation polymer electrocatalysts.