Unveiling the Potential of Metal–Organic Frameworks: Nucleation-Induced Strain Activating Electrocatalytic Water Splitting

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) exhibit immense potential, provided that we gain a comprehensive understanding of their nature and manipulate the factors to which they respond. Herein, the MOF is engineered and activated by introducing strain into the morphology through a suitable nucleation process. The defect-rich N-reduced graphene oxide (rGO) plays a pivotal role, serving as an uneven platform and tagging the nucleation site for MOF growth on its surface, resulting in a highly active electrocatalyst. The presence of dislocation strain and defects in the catalyst creates new active sites or modifies existing ones on its surface, potentially amplifying its catalytic activity. The catalyst showed excellent activity toward oxygen evolution reaction and hydrogen evolution reaction with a low overpotential of 145 and 51 mV to drive a current density of 10 mA cm–2. Additionally, the catalyst toward the overall water-splitting reaction displayed a cell voltage of 1.37 V at 10 mA cm–2 and maintained a high current density of 150 mA cm–2 for 200 h without significant degradation. Combining dislocation engineering with other catalytic strategies leads to synergistic effects that amplify the activity. Molecular dynamics simulations also show that introducing N-rGO in FeCo-MOF induces the strain and enhances its activity.