Recent Advances on MOF Derivatives for Non-Noble Metal Oxygen Electrocatalysts in Zinc-Air Batteries

Abstract

This review summarizes the recent progress and application of different metal-organic frameworks (MOFs)-derived non-noble metal materials for zinc-air batteries in the past few years. This work gives extensive insights in understanding the relationship between design strategies and structure-activity relationship. The challenges and prospects of MOF-derived oxygen electrocatalysts for zinc-air batteries are proposed. Oxygen electrocatalysts are of great importance for the air electrode in zinc-air batteries (ZABs). Owing to the high specific surface area, controllable pore size and unsaturated metal active sites, metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) derivatives have been widely studied as oxygen electrocatalysts in ZABs. To date, many strategies have been developed to generate efficient oxygen electrocatalysts from MOFs for improving the performance of ZABs. In this review, the latest progress of the MOF-derived non-noble metal–oxygen electrocatalysts in ZABs is reviewed. The performance of these MOF-derived catalysts toward oxygen reduction, and oxygen evolution reactions is discussed based on the categories of metal-free carbon materials, single-atom catalysts, metal cluster/carbon composites and metal compound/carbon composites. Moreover, we provide a comprehensive overview on the design strategies of various MOF-derived non-noble metal–oxygen electrocatalysts and their structure-performance relationship. Finally, the challenges and perspectives are provided for further advancing the MOF-derived oxygen electrocatalysts in ZABs.