Hydrangea flower-like nanostructure of dysprosium-doped Fe-MOF for highly efficient oxygen evolution reaction

• Published in: Rare metals Vol. 41; no. 3; pp. 844 - 850
• Main Authors: Ma, Yan, Mu, Guo-Mei, Miao, Yu-Jie, Lin, Dun-Min, Xu, Cheng-Gang, Xie, Feng-Yu, Zeng, Wen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Beijing Nonferrous Metals Society of China 01-03-2022; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Biomaterials; Chemical evolution; Chemistry and Materials Science; Clean energy; Doping; Dysprosium; Electrocatalysts; Electron density; Electronegativity; Energy; Iron; Letter; Materials Engineering; Materials Science; Metal-organic frameworks; Metallic Materials; Nanoscale Science and Technology; Noble metals; Physical Chemistry
• ISSN: 1001-0521; 1867-7185
• DOI: 10.1007/s12598-021-01851-9

Developing catalysts with high intrinsic activity toward oxygen evolution reaction (OER) has paramount importance to meet the ever-increasing quest for sustainability demands for green energy solutions but challenging. Herein, a one-step synthesized hydrangea flower-like metal-organic framework (MOF) by dysprosium (Dy)-doped Fe-MOF is reported (Dy
0.05
Fe-MOF/NF). Impressively, the obtained electrocatalyst possesses optimal OER intrinsic activity, showing a low overpotential of 258 mV at 100 mA·cm
−2
, superior to the capability of the noble metal RuO
2
. In addition, an overpotential of 318 mV is needed for Dy
0.05
Fe-MOF/NF to drive 500 mA·cm
−2
. The remarkable performance of Dy
0.05
Fe-MOF/NF can be explained by the surface-active electron density modulation of Fe sites, because the doping of Dy with a lower electronegativity than doping of Fe could donate electrons to the neighboring Fe atoms, resulting in profoundly improved OER performance. Beyond that, this work not only offers a perspective to understand the OER mechanism of rare earth doping, but also guides us to design more ideal electrocatalyst and beyond.
Graphic abstract