In Situ Synthesis of Surface-Mounted Novel Nickel(II) Trimer-Based MOF on Nickel Oxide Hydroxide Heterostructures for Enhanced Methanol Electro-Oxidation

Engineering the heterogeneous interface fusing MOFs and inorganic active component is an effective strategy to improve the electrochemical performance. Herein, we report a new Ni3-based MOF (denoted as CTGU-24) with an infrequent 2-fold interpenetrating 3D (3,8)-connected network constructed from Ni(II) trimer and mixed tripodal tectonics for the electrocatalytic methanol oxidation reaction (MOR). In order to improve its stability and activities, the heterogeneous hybrid CTGU-24@NiOOH has been fabricated successfully via the first preparation of NiOOH nanosphere and then in situ formation of CTGU-24 decorated on NiOOH surface. Moreover, the integration of CTGU-24@NiOOH and different additives (acetylene black (AB) and ketjen black (KB)), resulting in the optimized hybrid sample AB&CTGU-24@NiOOH (4:4). It attains better MOR performance with an area specific peak current density of 34.53mA•cm−2 than pure CTGU-24 (14.99 mA•cm−2) and improved durability in an alkali medium. The new findings indicate that the CTGU-24@NiOOH heterostructure formed in situ and the integration of moderate additives are critical to optimizing and improving electrocatalytic activity of pure MOFs crystalline material.