Nanorods of nitrogen-rich copper MOF in high-performance bifunctional electrocatalysis for oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions.

This work introduces a rapid, cost-effective, and energy-efficient synthesis method for a copper-based metal-organic framework (CuTz-1) catalyst to overcome challenges in oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in alkaline media. Among the electrodes, the CuTz-1/nickel foam (NF) demonstrates superior performance with low overpotentials (142 mV and 82 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and 20 mA cm−2), small Tafel slopes (37.1 mV dec−1 and 51.1 mV dec−1) and high turnover frequency (TOF) value (76 × 10−3 s−1 and 0.277 s−1) for OER and HER, respectively. Remarkably, CuTz-1/NF maintains stable electrocatalytic activity over 20 h. The presented gram-scale synthesis approach offers practical applications in water splitting, particularly where manufacturing processes are a concern. • Nanorods of copper MOF can be prepared on a gram-scale. • Nickel foam was found to be the best substrate to immobilize copper MOF. • The copper MOF catalyst exhibits low overpotential, Tafel slope, and high stability for OER and HER in alkaline media. • The copper MOF/nickel foam is a promising candidate to replace the noble metal-based electrocatalysts for water splitting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]