Metal-organic framework derived electrocatalysts for alkaline oxygen evolution reaction

Abstract

The challenge of the energy crisis and the demand for clean fuels is ever-growing. Hence, hydrogen is considered the future fuel because of its clean-burning properties. Electrochemically catalyzed splitting of water provides us with a carbon-free method for producing hydrogen and oxygen. Oxygen evolution reaction (OER) has a slow kinetics which affects the overall efficiency of the process of water splitting. To overcome the OER kinetics, ruthenium and iridium-based catalysts are used, but because of their low availability, high cost and unsatisfactory stability, they are noneconomical for large-scale applications. Hence, active research is going on to develop catalysts based on cheaper transition metals for electrochemical OER. Recently, a variety of Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) based OER electrocatalysts have emerged because of their highly porous nature and easy tunability of active sites. Through this work, nickel, cobalt, iron and manganese isonicotinate MOFs (Ni(4 - PyC)2, Co(4 - PyC)2, Fe(4 - PyC)2 and Mn(4 - PyC)2), and their derivatives have been synthesized, and their OER catalytic activity is studied. Electrochemical studies were done to assess the activity, kinetics and stability of these catalysts toward alkaline electrochemical OER.