Doping of high-valence metals and their electrocatalytic oxygen evolution reaction in metal/porous carbon composites

Preparing high-efficiency, durable and low overpotential electrocatalytic materials for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) plays a key role in water electrolysis. At present, electrochemical water separation technology has become the most promising sustainable hydrogen production process. The inherent hysteresis kinetics of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is the key bottleneck of water electrolysis, which greatly restricts the energy conversion efficiency and practical large-scale application. Herein, a facile method is developed to synthesize a series of trimetallic (Mo/Ni/Fe) metal-organic frameworks (MOFs)-derived carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) with various Fe content, and a Fe-dependent volcano-type plot can be drawn out for MoNiFex-CNPs. The optimized MoNiFe0.4-CNPs demonstrate superior electrocatalytic performance with a low overpotential of only 227 mV@10 mA cm(-2) and excellent durability of 100 h. Its excellent OER performance is attributed to the synergistic effect of Fe/Ni bimetallic regulated by Mo. This work improved the catalytic performance of MOFs in the OER and proposed a new strategy for the structural design of MOFs.

Automated summary

Preparing high-efficiency, durable and low overpotential electrocatalytic materials is crucial for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in water electrolysis. Electrochemical water separation technology has become the most promising method for sustainable hydrogen production. The inherent hysteresis kinetics of OER is the main bottleneck for water electrolysis, restricting energy conversion efficiency and large-scale application. In this study, a facile method is developed to synthesize trimetallic metal-organic frameworks (MOFs)-derived carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) with varying Fe content. The optimized MoNiFe0.4-CNPs exhibit superior electrocatalytic performance with a low overpotential and excellent durability, attributed to the synergistic effect of Fe/Ni bimetallic regulated by Mo. This work improves the catalytic performance of MOFs in OER and proposes a new strategy for MOFs structural design.