A Small Organic Catalyst Based on Benzothiadiazole for Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Production

A small organic molecule 2,1,3-benzothiadiazole-4, 7-dicarbonitrile (BTDN) has been tested as electrocatalyst for hydrogen production. The catalyst shows a hydrogen production faradaic efficiency of 82% in presence of salicylic acid. Some of reaction mediators are identified and characterized by using various spectroscopic methods and density functional theory (DFT) based calculations.