Two novel Co (II)‐coordination polymers as bifunctional materials for efficient photocatalytic degradation of dyes and electrocatalytic water oxidation.

Two novel Co (II)‐ coordination polymers (CPs) based on 2,5‐bis(4‐carboxylpheny)‐1,3,4‐oxadiazole (bcpo), namely [Co/(bcpo)0.5(tib)(H2O)2]n (1) and [Co (bcpo)0.5(bidpe)(H2O)2]n (2) (tib = 1,3,5‐tirs(1‐imidazolyl)benzene, bidpe = 4,4′‐bis (imidazolyl)diphenyl ether) have been synthesized under solvothermal conditions and characterized by powder X‐ray diffraction (PXRD), single crystal X‐ray diffraction, photochemistry as well as electrochemistry. The investigation of the photo‐degradation methyl blue and methyl violet (MB, MV) properties of CPs 1–2 demonstrates that CP 1 shows great performance for the degradation of MB, and CP 2 could efficiently degrade MB/MV. Meanwhile, the possible photo‐degradation mechanism has been proposed and explored. Simultaneously, electrochemistry studies show that both CPs 1 and 2 can catalyze water oxidation under an alkaline condition at the potential around 1.20 V vs. NHE with relatively low overpotential of 330–510 mV vs. NHE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]