Chiral metal-organic frameworks as catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction

The important positive effect that spin-polarized currents have on reducing the overpotential required for the Oxygen Evolution Reaction (OER), and on improving the overall efficiency of the water-splitting process, has been reported recently by several groups [1–4]. Chiral materials can create spin-currents without external electromagnetic fields thanks to the so-called Chiral Induced Spin Selectivity (CISS) effect [5, 6]. The research on metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as electrocatalysts for the OER has seen several contributions in recent years showing the great potential of this class of materials [7, 8]. However, the possibility of exploiting a chiral MOF to take advantage of the CISS effect in electrocatalysis has still to be explored [9]. In this work, we report the investigation of nanostructured chiral metal hydroxide-organic frameworks based on transition metals as catalysts for the OER, and we show the improved efficiency of a chiral catalytic system compared to the achiral analogue.