Preparation of CeO2/Cu-MOF/GO composite for efficient electrocatalytic oxygen evolution reaction

Clean hydrogen energy is urgently needed in the world, so it is necessary to develop a high-efficiency electrocatalyst (OER) for oxygen evolution reaction. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are a class of promising materials for diverse heterogeneous catalysis, but they are usually not directly employed for oxygen evolution electrocatalysis. In this paper, it is reported that a series of CeO2/MOF/GO composites prepared by the hydrothermal method can be directly used as high-efficiency electrocatalysts. The new materials have excellent properties, including high catalytic activity, high specific surface area, and abundant oxygen vacancies. The factors increase the electrochemical surface area (ECSA) and improve the OER performance of the catalyst. The optimized CeO2/MOF/GO catalyst has a low overpotential of 386 mV at 10 mA·cm−2 and a Tafel slope of 98.1 mV·dec−1, and has good stability under alkaline conditions. Therefore, the newly synthesized lanthanide-doped layered materials are expected to be a promising and efficient electrocatalyst for water decomposition.