Stable Iron Hydroxide Nanosheets@Cobalt-Metal-Organic-Framework Heterostructure for Efficient Electrocatalytic Oxygen Evolution.

ABSTRACT

Most studies are devoted to the use of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as templates to construct desirable electrocatalysts in situ by high-temperature pyrolysis. The emergence of heterostructures invokes new opportunities to use the full potential of pristine MOFs as efficient catalysts in the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Here, a MOF surface-reaction strategy is developed to synthesize MOF-based heterostructures without pyrolysis. Uniform Fe(OH)3 nanosheets are grown controllably on the Co-MOF-74 surface by a fast "phenol-Fe" reaction that takes advantage of the hydroxyl sites in Co-MOF-74. The resulting Fe(OH)3 @Co-MOF-74 heterostructure delivers an excellent performance in the OER with a low overpotential of 292 mV at 10 mA cm-2 . Notably, the introduction of Fe can improve the intrinsic activity of the original Co atom significantly. The turnover frequency in Fe(OH)3 @Co-MOF-74 (1.209 s-1 ) is more than 25 times higher than that in Co-MOF-74 (0.048 s-1 ). This work presents a fresh concept for the fundamental design of advanced pure-MOF-based heterostructures and, thereby, provides a new avenue for the fabrication of other energy-conversion and -storage materials.