Chemical Modifications of Ag Catalyst Surfaces with Imidazolium Ionomers Modulate H Evolution Rates during Electrochemical CO Reduction.

Bridging polymer design with catalyst surface science is a promising direction for tuning and optimizing electrochemical reactors that could impact long-term goals in energy and sustainability. Particularly, the interaction between inorganic catalyst surfaces and organic-based ionomers provides an avenue to both steer reaction selectivity and promote activity. Here, we studied the role of imidazolium-based ionomers for electrocatalytic CO reduction to CO (COR) on Ag surfaces and found that they produce no effect on COR activity yet strongly promote the competing hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). By examining the dependence of HER and COR rates on concentrations of CO and HCO, we developed a kinetic model that attributes HER promotion to intrinsic promotion of HCO reduction by imidazolium ionomers. We also show that varying the ionomer structure by changing substituents on the imidazolium ring modulates the HER promotion. This ionomer-structure dependence was analyzed via Taft steric parameters and density functional theory calculations, which suggest that steric bulk from functionalities on the imidazolium ring reduces access of the ionomer to both HCO and the Ag surface, thus limiting the promotional effect. Our results help develop design rules for ionomer-catalyst interactions in COR and motivate further work into precisely uncovering the interplay between primary and secondary coordination in determining electrocatalytic behavior.