Facile synthesis of zeolitic imidazolate framework‐67/vanadium‐doped nickel hydroxide as active electrocatalyst for oxygen evolution reaction.

Summary: Research activities devoted to the development of noble metal‐free electrocatalysts have expanded and still require large energy input to drive the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). A key challenge to improve the efficiency of water electrolysis systems is to develop efficient and robust electrocatalysts for water splitting. We propose a simple strategy to construct a nanostructure composed of zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF)‐67 grafted onto vanadium‐doped nickel hydroxide (Ni‐V) microflowers (MFs). In this integrated structure, the ZIF‐67 polyhedrons were well assembled on the surface of the Ni‐V MFs (ie, Z‐67/Ni‐V), thus enhancing the OER kinetics as a result of the interaction between Ni‐V and Co and increasing the electrocatalytic activity. In addition, the Z‐67/Ni‐V nanostructure is an efficient catalyst that exhibits improved surface area and pore volume. The Z‐67/Ni‐V nanostructures demonstrated greater OER electrocatalytic activity for alkaline water electrolysis and improved structural stability. Compared to their bare Ni‐V‐hydroxide counterparts, the Z‐67/Ni‐V nanostructure reveals an exceptionally low overpotential of 320 mV with a low Tafel slope of 71 mV dec−1 and remarkable long‐standing stability at current density of 10 mA cm−2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]