Design and Development of Water-splitting Electrocatalysts Based on Conjugated Triazine Frameworks

Covalent triazine frameworks (CTFs) with rich nitrogen atoms and permanent porosity have been widely used in the field of opto/electronics as supports. In this study, two CTFs with different pore sizes (single pore and heteropore) were synthesized, after which Cu2+, Co2+, Ni2+, Pd2+, Pt2+, and the corresponding metal cluster were introduced into the CTFs as catalytic active sites through the confinement effect of the pores. Among a series of CTFs-based electrocatalysts, DCP-CTF-Pt2+ displays an outstanding electrocatalytic performance with an overpotential of 46 mV and a Tafel slope of 30.2 mV dec-1. Catalytic kinetics analysis indicates that electrocatalytic performance is closely relevant to hierarchical pore and metal size.