Supramolecular Tuning Enables Selective Oxygen Reduction Catalyzed by Cobalt Porphyrins for Direct Electrosynthesis of Hydrogen Peroxide

Abstract

We report a supramolecular strategy for promoting the selective reduction of O₂ for direct electrosynthesis of H₂ O₂ . We utilized cobalt tetraphenylporphyrin (Co-TPP), an oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalyst with highly variable product selectivity, as a building block to assemble the permanently porous supramolecular cage Co-PB-1(6) bearing six Co-TPP subunits connected through twenty-four imine bonds. Reduction of these imine linkers to amines yields the more flexible cage Co-rPB-1(6). Both Co-PB-1(6) and Co-rPB-1(6) cages produce 90-100 % H₂ O₂ from electrochemical ORR catalysis in neutral pH water, whereas the Co-TPP monomer gives a 50 % mixture of H₂ O₂ and H₂ O. Bimolecular pathways have been implicated in facilitating H₂ O formation, therefore, we attribute this high H₂ O₂ selectivity to site isolation of the discrete molecular units in each supramolecule. The ability to control reaction selectivity in supramolecular structures beyond traditional host-guest interactions offers new opportunities for designing such architectures for a broader range of catalytic applications.