2-D Silver Iodoplumbate Catalysts for Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution and Photocatalytic Degradation

The discovery of bifunctional heterometallic iodides is awfully desirable for the potential electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution and photocatalytic degradation applications. Herein, one organic-inorganic hybrid 2-D silver iodoplumbate [H₂bip]₂[Ag₂Pb₃I₁₂] (AgPbI-1) has been hydro-thermally prepared. AgPbI-1 comprises dimeric [Ag₂I₆]^4- unit and infrequent 1-D iodoplumbate chain [Pb₃I₁₂^6-]_n, which are further interconnected to form a new type of 2-D silver iodoplumbate layer [Ag₂Pb₃I₁₂^4-]_n with the largest [Ag₄Pb₆I₈] heteroring. The combination of AgPbI-1 with Ni nanoparticles covering the surface of the porous nickel foam (NF) results in the Ni/AgPbI-1/NF electrode as an effective catalyst, indicating excellent hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) activity with a low overpotential of 121 mV at 10 mA·cm^-2. AgPbI-1 also shows the exceptional photocatalytic degradation activity of methylene blue under visible-light illumination. These results highlight the great potential of AgPbI-1 as the efficient bifunctional catalyst in HER and photodegradation applications.