Metal-free synthesis of pyridyl conjugated microporous polymers with tunable bandgaps for efficient visible-light-driven hydrogen evolution

Conjugated microporous polymers (CMPs) with tunable bandgaps have attracted increasing attention for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution. However, the synthesis of CMPs usually needs expensive metal-based catalysts. Herein, we report a metal-free synthetic route to fabricate pyridyl conjugated microporous polymers (PCMPs) via a condensed polymerization between aldehyde and aryl ketone monomers. The PCMPs show widely tunable specific surface areas (347-418 m2/g), which were controlled via changing the used monomers. The PCMPs synthesized using monomers of dialdehyde and diacetylbenzene (di-acetylpyridine) in the presence of pyridine exhibited the highest visible-light driven hydrogen evolution rate (9.56 mu mol/h). These novel designed PCMPs provide wide adaptability to current materials designed for high-performance photocatalysts in different applications. (c) 2023 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Chinese Chemical Society and Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.