Purified mesoporous nickel metal organic framework as electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in basic medium

Metal organic framework or MOFs are found to be a good catalyst for hydrogen evolution in view of its excellent structural features like porous nature and well-defined morphology. This report describes the synthesis of Nickel-MOF prepared by solvothermal approach and further purified by a chemical process. Both impure and purified Nickel-MOFs are fabricated as electrodes for evaluating HER reaction. The performance towards electrocatalytic activity is affected due to the impurities present in the porous structure. In view of investigating the effect of activation/purification process towards morphology and in-turn HER activity, activation and purification is carried out to enhance the performance of MOFs. The electrochemical characterization proves high electrocatalytic activity for purified Ni-MOF with high rate kinetics towards HER than impure Ni-MOF. The Tafel slope of purified Nickel MOF is estimated to be 73.7 mV/dec with a low charge transfer resistance of 1.84 Ω, whereas the unpurified Ni-MOF shows 87.47 mV/dec and 3.85 Ω. Results show that pure Ni-MOF has abundant catalytic active edge sites and obeys Volmer-Heyrvosky mechanism with makes desorption of hydrogen as rate determining step.