Rational design of two novel metal–organic frameworks as photocatalysts for degradation of organic dyes and their derived materials as electrocatalysts for OER

Abstract

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) and their derivatives have received numerous attention of potential applications for electro/photo-catalysis because of their diverse structures and tunable properties. In this study, two novel cobalt-based MOFs [Co4(bbibp)5(HCOO)8(H2O)2]n (compound 1) and [Co(bimmb)(NO3)2]n (compound 2) were constructed by selecting different N-donor bridging ligands (bbibp = 4,4-bis(imidazol-1-yl)biphenyl, bimmb = 1,4-bis(imidazol-1-ylmethyl)benzene). The structures of two compounds were well characterized by single crystal X-ray diffraction. The photocatalytic degradation of two compounds were investigated, which showed both of two compounds have good photocatalytic activities for MB. Moreover, a carbon-based cobalt oxide nanoparticle (CoO@C-1) was prepared using compound 1 as a precursor and used for electrocatalytic OER. The result indicated that CoO@C-1 has good electrocatalytic activity with a small overpotential of 377 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and smaller Tafel slope of 70 mV dec−1.