Recent progress on MOFs and their derivative-carbon fiber composite materials for oxygen electrocatalysis

Abstract

Oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) are the key reactions in fuel cells and metal–air batteries, which are crucial in the development of new environmentally friendly energy storage devices. In recent years, MOFs and their derivative-carbon fiber composite materials have been designed as high-performance oxygen electrocatalysts, which exhibit excellent catalytic performance owing to their uniformly distributed active sites, unique porosity, flexible tunability and high electrical conductivity. This review summarizes the research progress on MOFs combined with carbon fiber composite materials as electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction/oxygen evolution reaction. Firstly, the methods for the synthesis of MOF-carbon fiber composite materials and MOF derivative-carbon fiber materials are briefly introduced and the different effects of each method on their catalytic properties are discussed in detail. Then, by analyzing the ORR and OER mechanisms and activity descriptors of the reaction, mechanisms for the regulation of ORR and OER using some MOFs and their derivative-carbon fiber composite materials are deeply investigated based on 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 with carbon fibers to form novel composite materials with higher catalytic activity, effectively promoting their applications in fields such as energy conversion and storage.