Engineering pristine 2D metal–organic framework nanosheets for electrocatalysis

Abstract

Due to their appealing properties such as abundant number of coordinatively unsaturated atoms, enhanced conductivity, high porosity, large surface area and tunable structure, 2D metal–organic framework (MOF) nanosheets have stimulated extensive research interest in the field of electrocatalysis. During the past several years, significant advances have been made in the direct applications of pristine 2D MOF nanosheets as efficient electrocatalysts. This review first discusses the synthetic strategies of MOF nanosheets. Then recent progress on pristine MOF nanosheets for electrocatalytic reactions, including the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), the carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CRR) and the urea oxidation reaction (UOR) is summarized. In particular, engineering electronic structures of pristine MOF nanosheets to favor efficient electrocatalytic processes are discussed. Despite the encouraging accomplishments achieved, more engineered pristine MOF nanosheets with enhanced electrocatalytic performance are still needed. Therefore, bottlenecks faced by current pristine MOF nanosheets for electrocatalysis and potential solutions to these problems are finally proposed to promote further development in this research field.