Random Occupation of Multimetal Sites in Transition Metal-Organic Frameworks for Boosting the Oxygen Evolution Reaction

Chemistry. 2022 Mar 7;28(14):e202104288. doi: 10.1002/chem.202104288. Epub 2022 Feb 9.

Abstract

Developing robust oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts with excellent performance is essential for the conversion of renewable electricity to clean fuel. Herein, we present a facile concept for the synthesis of efficient high-entropy metal-organic frameworks (HEMOFs) as electrocatalysts in a one-step solvothermal synthesis. This strategy allows control of the microstructure and corresponding lattice distortion by tuning the metal ion composition. As a result, the OER activity was improved by optimizing the coordination environment of the metal catalytic center. The optimized Co-rich HEMOFs exhibited a low overpotential of 310 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm-2 , better than a RuO2 catalyst tested under the same conditions. The finding of lattice distortion of the HEMOFs provides a new strategy for developing high-performance electrocatalysts for energy conversion.

Keywords: high entropy materials; lattice distortion; metal-organic frameworks; oxygen evolution reaction; random occupation of multi-metals.