Cobalt Coordinated Thiourea as Metal Organic Framework for Oxygen Evolution and Reduction Reactions and Its Al–Air Battery Applications

The critical process of fuel cells, metal-air batteries, and electrolyzers are the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), which inherently have slow kinetics demand an electrocatalyst to enhance reaction rates, performance, and durability. Nonetheless, most nonprecious catalysts undergo heat treatment, involve multiple stages, and struggle with maintaining their active sites. Herein, the active sites is intended to maintain and the synthesis costs is lowered by eliminating the need for heat treatment, leading to the polymerization of cobalt thioamide linkages for a more efficient and durable cobalt thioamide polymer synthesized through a polycondensation. This coordination polymer catalyst is supported on Ketjen Black and exhibited superior OER (E_j10 = 1.57 V) and ORR (E_1/2 = 0.71 V) performances. The potential efficiency during long-term durability of this polymer is examined by performing continuous OER operation for 260 h and exhibiting only 5.1% performance decay. For ORR durability, only 39 mV is required after 30 000 cycles in accelerated durability tests compared with the initial cycle. This study highlights the potential of cobalt-coordinated polymer on Ketjen Black as high-performing and durable alternatives to benchmark catalysts for OER and ORR.