Low-Crystalline Bimetallic Metal–Organic Framework Electrocatalysts with Rich Active Sites for Oxygen Evolution

Developing efficient, stable, and low-cost catalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is highly desired in water splitting and metal–air batteries. Transition metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as promising catalysts and have been intensively investigated especially due to their tunable crystalline structure. Unlike traditional strategies of tuning the morphology of well-crystalline MOFs, low-crystalline bimetallic MOFs are constructed via inducing exotic metal ions, and the formation process is revealed by experimental and theoretical methods. The low-crystalline bimetallic MOFs exhibit rich active sites due to local crystallinity and long-range disorder and deliver a small overpotential of 260 mV at 10 mA cm–2, a low Tafel slope of 35 mV dec–1, and a high Faradaic efficiency of 99.5% as oxygen evolution elecctrocatalysts. The work opens up a new avenue for the development of highly efficient earth-abundant catalysts in frontier potential applications.