Electronic Supplementary Material (ESI) for Sustainable Energy & Fuels. This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2017 Supplementary Information for: Using Earth Abundant Materials for the Catalytic Evolution of Hydrogen from Electron-Coupled-Proton-Buffers Lewis MacDonalda , Jessica C. McGlynna, Nicola Irvinea, Ihfaf Alshibanea, Leanne G. Bloora, Benjamin Rauscha, Justin S. J. Hargreavesa, Leroy Cronin*a a WestCHEM, School of Chemistry, University of Glasgow, University Avenue, Glasgow, G12 8QQ, UK * Corresponding author,
[email protected] Contents SI-1 General Experimental Remarks 3 SI-2 Electrochemical methods 3 SI-3 Electrochemical testing and reduction of redox mediators 5 SI-4 Hydrogen evolution from ECPB’s in the presence of purchased and 7 synthesised catalysts SI-5 Theory of variation of hydrogen evolution 9 SI-6 Catalyst Synthesis 11 SI-7 Characterisation of catalysts 13 SI-8 SMA and PMA CV’s overlaid onto HER onset graphs 28 SI-9 Reusability of earth abundant catalysts with STA 29 SI-10 Tables 30 SI-11 References 33 SI-1: General Experimental Remarks: The solvents used throughout the experimental procedures were purchased from Sigma Aldrich. All chemicals purchased for the synthesis of the earth abundant catalysts were purchased from Sigma Aldrich. Nafion N-117 (0.18mm thick) membrane, used in the H-cells, was purchased from Alfa Aesar. Carbon felt, used as a high surface area working electrode, was purchased from either Alfa Aesar (43199, 3.18mm thick, 99.0%) or FuelCellStore (AvCarb G100 Soft Graphite Battery Felt, 3.2mm thick, 99%). Nitrogen (OFN) and argon (Pureshield) gas cylinders were purchased from BOC.