Recent Advances on Electrocatalysis Using Pristinely Conductive Metal-Organic Frameworks and Covalent Organic Frameworks

Exploiting advanced electrocatalysts for electrochemical reaction is of vital importance for the development of metal-air batteries, fuel cells, water electrolyzers, and so on. Due to the unique textural and structural properties, conductive metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and covalent organic frameworks (COFs) exhibit many advantages in comparison with conventional catalysts. When conductive MOFs and COFs are directly used as catalysts, the atomically dispersed metal nodes can offer highly active sites. This minireview focuses on the recent progress of conductive MOFs and COFs as electrocatalysts towards electrochemical reactions, including oxygen evolution reaction (OER), hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR), and nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR). A variety of typical strategies, including synthetic designs, compositional, and structural modifications for activity improvement of the conductive MOFs and COFs materials in the electrochemical reaction are introduced. Based on the previous achievements, the current stage and the outlook for the future development of the field are summarized.

Automated summary

This article discusses the importance of using conductive MOFs and COFs as catalysts in electrochemical reactions, and summarizes the recent progress in this area, including strategies for improving activity towards reactions such as OER, HER, CO2RR, and NRR.