Green synthesis of olefin-linked covalent organic frameworks for hydrogen fuel cell applications

  • Nat Commun. 2021 Mar 31;12(1):1982. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-22288-9.
Zhifang Wang  #  1  2 ,  Yi Yang  #  1  2 ,  Zhengfeng Zhao  #  1  3 ,  Penghui Zhang  1 ,  Yushu Zhang  1 ,  Jinjin Liu  1 ,  Shengqian Ma  4 ,  Peng Cheng  1  2  5 ,  Yao Chen  1  3 ,  Zhenjie Zhang  6  7  8
Affiliations
  • 1. State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, College of Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin, China.
  • 2. Key Laboratory of Advanced Energy Materials Chemistry, Ministry of Education, Nankai University, Tianjin, China.
  • 3. College of Pharmacy, Nankai University, Tianjin, China.
  • 4. Department of Chemistry, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA.
  • 5. Renewable energy conversion and storage center, Nankai University, Tianjin, China.
  • 6. State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, College of Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin, China. [email protected].
  • 7. Key Laboratory of Advanced Energy Materials Chemistry, Ministry of Education, Nankai University, Tianjin, China. [email protected].
  • 8. Renewable energy conversion and storage center, Nankai University, Tianjin, China. [email protected].
  • # Contributed equally.
PMID: 33790298 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22288-9
Abstract

Green synthesis of crystalline porous Materials for energy-related applications is of great significance but very challenging. Here, we create a green strategy to fabricate a highly crystalline olefin-linked pyrazine-based covalent organic framework (COF) with high robustness and porosity under solvent-free conditions. The abundant nitrogen sites, high hydrophilicity, and well-defined one-dimensional nanochannels make the resulting COF an ideal platform to confine and stabilize the H3PO4 network in the pores through hydrogen-bonding interactions. The resulting material exhibits low activation energy (Ea) of 0.06 eV, and ultrahigh proton conductivity across a wide relative humidity (10-90 %) and temperature range (25-80 °C). A realistic proton exchange membrane fuel cell using the olefin-linked COF as the solid electrolyte achieve a maximum power of 135 mW cm-2 and a current density of 676 mA cm-2, which exceeds all reported COF Materials.

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