Recent Advances in MOF-Derived Functional Materials for Electrochemical Energy Conversion and Storage

Abstract

Driven by low-carbon energy development, electrochemical energy conversion and storage technologies, including water electrolysis and zinc-air batteries, have drawn attention. However, the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) are plagued by sluggish reaction kinetics and high overpotential, limiting the energy efficiency of electrochemical devices. Though noble metal-based catalysts deliver outstanding catalytic performance, they are constrained by high cost and resource scarcity, making them unable to meet the demands of large-scale applications. Consequently, efficient and stable non-noble metal electrocatalysts have attracted increasing research interest. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), featuring tunable compositions, ordered pores, and uniformly distributed metal sites, serve as promising precursors for non-noble metal-derived electrocatalysts. Thus, this review highlights three construction strategies for MOF-derived electrocatalytic materials, including composition regulation, non-metal doping, and structural engineering, and discusses their impacts on metal coordination, electronic structures, and mass transport. Besides, the research progress of MOF-derived materials in the OER of water electrolysis and bifunctional oxygen electrocatalysis for zinc-air batteries is summarized. Combined with in situ characterization and density functional theory (DFT) calculations, the active sites, catalytic evolution, and underlying reaction mechanisms are discussed. The results demonstrate that despite favorable catalytic performance, MOF-derived electrocatalysts still face challenges in the analysis of dynamic evolution of active phases, stability at high current densities, consistency in scalable preparation, and device compatibility.