Functional Role of Metal Center and Doping on Tuning the Electrocatalytic Oxygen Evolution Activity of BioMIL-1: Experimental and Theoretical Approaches

To achieve high-efficiency energy conversion and storage technologies, the design and fabrication of high-performance electrocatalysts and an understanding of their catalytic mechanism are critical. In this study, the effect of different metal centers (Co, Ni, Fe, and Cu) on the morphology, structure, and electrocatalytic activity of metal–organic frameworks with nicotinic acid as a linker (Bio-MOFs) on the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in 0.1 KOH was investigated. In addition, the influence of the second metal on OER was studied. It could be shown that due to the highly exposed bimetal centers and the well-designed architecture of the cobalt–iron (Co–Fe)-based bimetallic–organic framework [BioMIL-(Co–Fe)], the OER showed a low overpotential of 275 mV (10 mA cm–2) and 350 mV (100 mA cm–2), respectively, with a high turnover frequency value of 0.23 s–1 at an overpotential of 320 mV. The presented electrocatalyst creates an emerging class of materials for electrocatalytic applications.