A Mixed Protonic-Electronic Conductor Base on the Host-Guest Architecture of 2D Metal-Organic Layers and Inorganic Layers

The key to designing and fabricating highly efficient mixed protonic-electronic conductors materials (MPECs) is to integrate the mixed conductive active sites into a single structure, to break through the shortcomings of traditional physical blending. Herein, based on the host-guest interaction, an MPEC is consisted of 2D metal-organic layers and hydrogen-bonded inorganic layers by the assembly methods of layered intercalation. Noticeably, the 2D intercalated materials (approximate to 1.3 nm) exhibit the proton conductivity and electron conductivity, which are 2.02 x 10(-5) and 3.84 x 10(-4) S cm(-1) at 100 degrees C and 99% relative humidity, much higher than these of pure 2D metal-organic layers (>>1.0 x 10(-10) and 2.01x10(-8) S cm(-1)), respectively. Furthermore, combining accurate structural information and theoretical calculations reveals that the inserted hydrogen-bonded inorganic layers provide the proton source and a networks of hydrogen-bonds leading to efficient proton transport, meanwhile reducing the bandgap of hybrid architecture and increasing the band electron delocalization of the metal-organic layer to greatly elevate the electron transport of intrinsic 2D metal-organic frameworks.

Automated summary

The key to designing and fabricating highly efficient mixed protonic-electronic conductors materials (MPECs) is to integrate the mixed conductive active sites into a single structure, to break through the shortcomings of traditional physical blending. Herein, an MPEC composed of 2D metal-organic layers and hydrogen-bonded inorganic layers was constructed using the assembly methods of layered intercalation based on host-guest interaction. The 2D intercalated materials demonstrated significantly higher proton and electron conductivity compared to pure 2D metal-organic layers, due to the inserted hydrogen-bonded inorganic layers providing the proton source and efficient proton transport, as well as reducing the bandgap and increasing the electron transport of the metal-organic layer.