Bimetal metal-organic framework hollow nanoprisms for enhanced electrochemical oxygen evolution

Carboxylate-based metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as promising electrocatalyst candidates for the water splitting and metal-air batteries. Hierarchical porous structure and redox-active metal centers with unsaturated coordination sites in MOFs facilitate the enhanced catalytic activity of oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Herein, uniform hollow structured Fe-free bi-metal (Co, Ni) MOF-74 nanoprisms are successfully synthesized using a solvothermal method and (Co1Ni1)3(OH)(CH3COO)5 as the sacrificial templates, where Co and Ni are the metal nodes and 2,5-dihydroxyterephthalic acid (H4DOBDC) serves as the organic ligand. At an overpotential of 300 mV, CoNi MOF-74 shows a high electrocatalytic activity towards OER in 0.1 M KOH, where the current density is 10 mA cm−2 and the Tafel slope is 65.6 mV dec−1. Meanwhile, CoNi MOF-74 is durable that sustains in alkaline for 100 h with 83.25% retention of current density. The improved catalytic activity can be associated with the in-situ generated amorphous Ni–Co (oxy)hydroxide, as well as the electron transfer from Ni2+ to Co2+. This work elucidates the potential application of MOF materials as efficient electrocatalysts for OER.