Recent progresses of MOFs and their derivatives-carbon fiber composite materials for oxygen electrocatalysis

Abstract

Oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) are key reactions for fuel cells and metal-air batteries, which are of great significance for the researches of new environmentally friendly energy storage devices. In recent years, MOFs and their derivatives-carbon fiber composite materials have been constructed as high-performance oxygen electrocatalysts, which exhibit excellent catalytic performance due to their uniformly distributed active sites, unique porosities, flexible tunabilities and high electrical conductivities. The review summarizes the researching progresses of MOFs combined with carbon fiber composite materials for oxygen reduction reaction/oxygen evolution reaction. Firstly, the synthesis methods of MOFs-carbon fiber composite materials and MOFs derivatives-carbon fiber materials are briefly introduced, respectively, and the different effects of each on the catalytic properties are discussed in detail. Then, by analyzing the ORR and OER reaction mechanisms and the activity descriptor of the reaction, the regulation mechanisms of ORR and OER by using some MOFs and their derivatives-carbon fiber composite materials were deeply investigated from five aspects including component regulation, structural regulation, size effect, interface engineering and defect engineering. Finally, some detailed challenges and future perspectives of MOFs and their derivative-carbon fiber composite materials for practical applications as electrocatalysts in energy devices are presented. This review can provide a reference for exploring more types of MOFs and their derivatives substances with carbon fibers to form novel composite materials with higher catalytic activity, and effectively promotes their applications in fields such as energy conversion and storage.