MOF-Derived Fe-Doped Ni@NC Hierarchical Hollow Microspheres as an Efficient Electrocatalyst for Alkaline Oxygen Evolution Reaction

[Image: see text] The development of low-cost and efficient electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is of great importance for producing hydrogen via water splitting. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) provide an opportunity for the facile preparation of high-efficiency OER electrocatalysts. In this work, we prepared iron-doped nickel nanoparticles encapsulated in nitrogen-doped carbon microspheres (Fe-Ni@NC) with a unique hierarchical porous structure by directly pyrolyzing the MOF precursor for effectively boosting OER. The Fe doping has a significant enhancement effect on the catalytic performance. The optimized Fe (5%)-Ni@NC catalyst represents a remarkable activity with an overpotential of 257 mV at 10 mA cm(–2) and superior stability toward OER in 1.0 M KOH.