Journal of Materials Science, Vol.55, No.24, 10773-10784, 2020
Altering the MOF-74 derivatives for efficient oxygen electrocatalysis through synergistic multi-metals and nitrogen modification
Herein, a novel method to employ a copper- and nitrogen-containing sodium copper chlorophyllin to couple with a cobalt- and zinc-based metal-organic framework-74 (CoxZn3-x-MOF-74) is intently developed. When the ratio between cobalt and zinc is 1:2 in the synthetic process, the final obtained cobalt and copper oxides supported by nitrogen-doped porous carbon catalyst at 900 degrees C (CoCu/PNC-900) possess hierarchical porous structure with optimal microporous and mesoporous proportion. Besides, the heteroparticle CoCu/PNC-900 also preserves the framework structure of MOF-74 with open porous structure for the exposure of active metal sites and fast mass diffusion in reaction. The optimized conductivity, porosity and full utilization of multiple metals together provide the catalyst with robust electrocatalytic performance. For the catalysis of oxygen reduction reaction, CoCu/PNC-900 displays good electrocatalytic activity with half-wave potential of + 0.811 V (vs. RHE), falling only 19 mV behind commercial Pt/C catalyst (+ 0.830 V vs. RHE) in 0.1 M KOH. Besides activity, CoCu/PNC-900 also shows noticeable stability with 12 mV of degradation after continuous cyclic voltammetry test of 5000 cycles. Furthermore, CoCu/PNC-900 shows 20 mV in potential close to that of IrO2 at 10 mA cm(-2), indicating its decent catalytic activity for oxygen evolution reaction.