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Scalable metal–organic framework-based electrodes for efficient alkaline water electrolysis

Nature Chemical Engineering volume 2, pages 474–483 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Renewable electricity-driven water splitting is essential for decarbonizing high-emission industries and transportation. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have shown great promise as catalytic materials for water splitting, but substantial gaps remain between fundamental research and practical application. Here we report the scalable and rapid synthesis of CoCe MOFs for alkaline water-splitting electrolyzers, achieving low energy consumption (4.11 kWh Nm−3 H2) and long-term stability (5,000 h). Experiments indicate that the advantageous physiochemical properties of CoCe MOFs such as lattice distortion and large specific surface area enhance catalytic activity, facilitate water and gas transport and improve electrolyte accessibility to catalytic interfaces in practical devices. Preliminary techno-economic analysis shows that the cost of hydrogen produced from the CoCe MOF-based electrolyzer is US$2.71 kg−1, which is close to the target cost set by the US Department of Energy, and a life cycle assessment indicates that green hydrogen has up to 84.5% lower life cycle carbon emissions than traditional gray hydrogen production pathways.

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Fig. 1: Process flow comparison between gray hydrogen production and green hydrogen production.
Fig. 2: Crystal structure and characterization of the MOFs.
Fig. 3: Electrocatalytic OER performance.
Fig. 4: Performance assessment of the MOFs in an AEM electrolyzer.
Fig. 5: Performance assessment, LCA and TEA in water electrolysis system.
Fig. 6: Performance enhancement mechanism of MOFs under applied potentials.

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Data availability

All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper and/or Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper, including the atomic coordinates of the optimized computational models. Additional data related to this paper may be requested from the authors.

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Acknowledgements

S. Zhao is grateful for the support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 22373027). L.S. is grateful for the support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 22409199). We thank the 1W1B-XAFS and 1W2B-WAXS Beamline of Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility for providing technical support and assistance in data collection. We also thank J. Dong and P. An from Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility for XAFS data analysis. We are grateful for the support from Intelligent Environment Research Center in the LCA evaluation using SimaPro.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Yingjie Guo, Lei Shi.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CAS Key Laboratory of Nanosystem and Hierarchical Fabrication, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing, P. R. China

    Yingjie Guo, Lei Shi, Xinshuo Shi, Tingting Zhao, Weichen Tian, Songlin Zhang, Yanzhe Li & Shenlong Zhao

  2. School of Chemical & Environmental Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing), Beijing, P. R. China

    Yingjie Guo & Di Liu

  3. Advanced National Engineering Research Center of Energy Storage Materials Co Ltd, Changsha, P. R. China

    Faping Zhong

  4. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, P. R. China

    Shenlong Zhao

Authors
  1. Yingjie Guo
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Contributions

S. Zhao proposed the research direction and supervised the project. Y.G. designed and performed the experiments. L.S. contributed to the theoretical calculation and experimental analysis. X.S. and S. Zhang supported the LCA and TEA. T.Z., W.T. and Y.L. assisted with parts of the experiments and data analysis. S. Zhao, F.Z. and D.L. contributed to theoretical and model development and supported data analysis. Y.G., L.S. and S. Zhao discussed the results and cowrote the manuscript. All authors participated in the discussion and the preparation of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Shenlong Zhao.

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Nature Chemical Engineering thanks Shaojun Guo, Lei Wang, Yao Zheng and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Atomic coordinates of the optimized computational models.

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Guo, Y., Shi, L., Shi, X. et al. Scalable metal–organic framework-based electrodes for efficient alkaline water electrolysis. Nat Chem Eng 2, 474–483 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44286-025-00262-2

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