MOF-derived CuCoNi trimetallic hybrids as efficient oxygen evolution reaction electrocatalysts

Abstract

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) as templates can easily form homogeneous multimetallic materials via metal ion exchange, and they have been widely used as electrocatalysts in the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) due to the synergistic effect of the metal ions. Herein, by selecting Cu(BDC) as a template, a simple one-step impregnation method was used to prepare CuCoNi trimetallic electrocatalysts, which exhibited excellent catalytic performance for the OER with a low overpotential of 327 mV at a 10 mA cm⁻² current density and a small Tafel slope of 75.7 mV dec⁻¹. The outstanding OER activity may be attributed to the transformed 2D lamellar morphology, amorphous structure and the synergistic effect of the metal species.