Advances and challenges in two-dimensional materials for oxygen evolution

Oxygen evolution reaction (OER) plays an important role in many energy conversions and storage technologies, such as water splitting, rechargeable metal air batteries, renewable fuel cells, and electrocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction and nitrogen reduction, but its slow kinetics and high overpotential seriously affect the energy efficiency. Fabrication of high-performance and well-stocked OER catalysts is the key to the large-scale implementation of these energy-related technologies. Two-dimensional (2D) materials get a lot of attention as OER catalysts due to their large specific surface area, abundant active sites, and adjustable structures and compositions. Here, an overview is presented for the latest achievements in design and synthesis of 2D materials (including layered double hydroxides, metal-organic frameworks and their derivatives, covalent-organic frameworks, graphene, and black phosphorus) for the OER, emphasizing novel strategies (including metal/nonmetal doping, defect engineering, interface engineering, lattice strain, and fabrication of heterojunction) for achieving high electrocatalytic activity. Peculiarly, the structure–function relationship is analyzed in detail to gain deeper insight into the reaction mechanism, which is crucial to rational design of more high-performance 2D materials for the OER. Finally, the remaining challenges to improve the OER performance of 2D electrocatalysts are put forward to indicate possible future development of 2D materials.