Trilayer Metal–Organic Frameworks as Multifunctional Electrocatalysts for Energy Conversion and Storage Applications

The need for enhanced energy storage and improved catalysts has led researchers to explore advanced functional materials for sustainable energy production and storage. Herein, we demonstrate a reductive electrosynthesis approach to prepare a layer-by-layer (LbL) assembled trimetallic Fe–Co–Ni metal–organic framework (MOF) in which the metal cations within each layer or at the interface of the two layers are linked to one another by bridging 2-amino-1,4-benzenedicarboxylic acid linkers. Tailoring catalytically active sites in an LbL fashion affords a highly porous material that exhibits excellent trifunctional electrocatalytic activities toward the hydrogen evolution reaction (ηj=10 = 116 mV), oxygen evolution reaction (ηj=10 = 254 mV), as well as oxygen reduction reaction (half-wave potential = 0.75 V vs reference hydrogen electrode) in alkaline solutions. The dispersion-corrected density functional theory calculations suggest that the prominent catalytic activity of the LbL MOF toward the HER, OER, and ORR is due to the initial negative adsorption energy of water on the metal nodes and the elongated O–H bond length of the H2O molecule. The Fe–Co–Ni MOF-based Zn–air battery exhibits a remarkable energy storage performance and excellent cycling stability of over 700 cycles that outperform the commercial noble metal benchmarks. When assembled in an asymmetric device configuration, the activated carbon||Fe–Co–Ni MOF supercapacitor provides a superb specific energy and a power of up to 56.2 W h kg–1 and 42.2 kW kg–1, respectively. This work offers not only a novel approach to prepare an LbL assembled multimetallic MOF but also provides a benchmark for a multifunctional electrocatalyst for water splitting and Zn–air batteries.