AUTHOR=Hameed Arslan , Batool Mariam , Iqbal Waheed , Abbas Saghir , Imran Muhammad , Khan Inayat Ali , Nadeem Muhammad Arif 

TITLE=ZIF-12/Fe-Cu LDH Composite as a High Performance Electrocatalyst for Water Oxidation

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Chemistry

VOLUME=Volume 9 - 2021

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/chemistry/articles/10.3389/fchem.2021.686968

DOI=10.3389/fchem.2021.686968

ISSN=2296-2646

ABSTRACT=Layered double hydroxides (LDH) are being used as electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER). However, low current densities limit their practical applications. Herein, we report a facile and economic synthesis of an iron-copper based LDH integrated with a cobalt-based metal-organic framework (ZIF-12) to form LDH-ZIF-12 composite (1) through co-precipitation method. The as-synthesized composite 1 requires a low overpotential of 337 mV to achieve a catalytic current density of 10 mA cm−2 with a Tafel slope of 89 mV dec−1. Tafel analysis further demonstrate that 1 exhibits a slope of 89 mV dec−1 which is much lower than the slope of 284 mV dec−1 for LDH and 172 mV dec−1 for ZIF-12. Whilst the slope value of 1 is also lower than previously reported electrocatalysts including Ni-Co LDH (113 mV dec−1) and Zn-Co LDH nanosheets (101 mV dec−1), under similar conditions. Controlled potential electrolysis and stability tests experiments shows the potential application of 1 as heterogeneous electrocatalyst for water oxidation.