Strategic Defect Engineering Enabled Efficient Oxygen Evolution Reaction in Reconstructed Metal‐Organic Frameworks

Abstract Metal‐organic frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as promising pre‐catalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) due to their marvelous structural reconstruction process in strongly alkaline media. However, targeting design MOF structures to achieve excellent OER performance of reconstructed products is a challenge. Here, a strategic defect engineering is used to promote the OER performance of reconstructed products. Briefly, modified linkers with monocarboxylic acids (ferrocene carboxylic acid, FcCA) are incorporated into MOF (NiBDC‐FcCA), leading to its stepwise reconstruction into Fe‐doped Ni(OH) 2 and NiOOH during the OER process, with the oxygen vacancy and strategic doping of metal Fe persisting throughout the multi‐step reconstruction. Benefiting from the synergistic interaction of oxygen vacancies and Fe doping, NiBDC‐FcCA delivers the extremely enhanced current density at 1.6 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode by ≈9 times compared with that of NiBDC. Moreover, the optimized NiBDC‐FcCA/Fe foam exhibits excellent OER catalytic activity and stability with a low overpotential of 250 mV at 200 mA cm −2 and negligible activity decay after 1200 h at 1 A cm −2 . Density function theory calculations reveal that Fe doping weakens the interaction of oxygen intermediate with Ni sites, favoring the formation of OOH* to accelerate the OER process.