Covalent Organic Frameworks as Efficient Electrocatalysts for Oxygen Evolution Reactions

Abstract

The emergence of a novel class of porous materials called covalent organic frameworks (COFs) provides new platforms and opportunities to design non-precious catalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The materials possess exceptional advantages that make them superior to metal-organic frameworks. These include an enhanced structural property, lower density because of their lighter elements, rich electronic characters and conjugated pie-cloud, donor-acceptor node, higher polarizing moiety, and exceptional thermal stability due to their stronger strength covalent bonds. COFs also possess exceptional cooperative characteristics such as high surface areas, predesigned building units, and programmable architectural topology that make them suitable for OER. These unique attributes have resulted in the remarkable application of different COF materials for OER. This chapter started with the principles and mechanism of electrocatalytic OER. It thereby presents different COFs used for electrocatalytic OER ranging from pristine COFs, COF derivatives, and COF composites. To sum it up, some associated challenges with the applicability of COF materials for OER were discussed, and this study noted that despite these hitches and challenges, the future of COFs is promising for OER.