Issue 21, 2017

Graphene oxide/core–shell structured metal–organic framework nano-sandwiches and their derived cobalt/N-doped carbon nanosheets for oxygen reduction reactions

Abstract

A metal–organic framework (MOF) seed-mediated deposition route is developed to synthesize MOF/graphene oxide (GO)/MOF nano-sandwiches with core–shell structured MOF (i.e. ZIF-8@ZIF-67) crystals uniformly distributed on GO. Due to the well controllable growth rate, ZIF-8 seeds are first deposited on GO. Then, ZIF-67 species are selectively deposited on the surface of ZIF-8 to form core–shell structures owing to their similar crystal structure and unit cell parameter. Compared with the direct deposition of ZIF-67 crystals on GO, this MOF seed-mediated synthesis can effectively prevent the over-growth and inhomogeneous distribution of ZIF-67 crystals. The GO/core–shell MOF composites are further demonstrated to be an excellent precursor for cobalt/N-doped carbon nanosheets, which are efficient nonprecious metal catalysts for oxygen reduction reactions, and exhibit a high onset potential (∼0.93 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode, vs. the RHE) and large kinetic current density (∼101 mA mg−1 at 0.80 V vs. the RHE). Such novel carbon materials derived from the core–shell structured MOF also show better catalytic performance than those derived from both GO/ZIF-8 and GO/ZIF-67 prepared under the same conditions. This work offers an alternative strategy to develop MOF-derived carbon-based composites using GO/core–shell structured MOFs as a kind of fresh precursors.

Graphical abstract: Graphene oxide/core–shell structured metal–organic framework nano-sandwiches and their derived cobalt/N-doped carbon nanosheets for oxygen reduction reactions

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
09 Jan 2017
Accepted
30 Mar 2017
First published
30 Mar 2017
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2017,5, 10182-10189

Graphene oxide/core–shell structured metal–organic framework nano-sandwiches and their derived cobalt/N-doped carbon nanosheets for oxygen reduction reactions

J. Wei, Y. Hu, Y. Liang, B. Kong, Z. Zheng, J. Zhang, S. P. Jiang, Y. Zhao and H. Wang, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2017, 5, 10182 DOI: 10.1039/C7TA00276A

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements