With the increasing use of fossil energy, environmental pollution and other problems are becoming more and more serious. Therefore, it’s urgent to develop clean, efficient, and sustainable energy conversion and storage technologies [1]. Hydrogen and oxygen energy can be prepared in a variety of ways. Producing hydrogen and oxygen by water electrolysis has the advantages of a wide source of raw materials, which is considered to be one of the most likely methods to replace the fossil energy [7-8]. However, the electrolysis of water to produce H2 and O2 requires overcoming a high inherent potential. So, it’s necessary to design and prepare a low-cost, efficient, and long-life dual-function electrocatalyst to reduce the over-potential of water electrolysis. MOF is a kind of nanoporous material with high specific surface area, variable pore structure, and structural diversity that has great application prospects in HER and OER [22,23]. For mentioned reason, in this study, MOF/Chitosan/Nb growing on NFF was prepared through a simple method. Electrochemical tests showed that the catalyst M-C-Nb@NF can perform OER and HER at current densities of 10 mA cm−2 only needing an overpotential of 100 mV and 160 mV, respectively. We think the MOFs growth on nickel–iron foam improves the conductivity and stability of the cell and using of niobium benefits exposing more active sites and enhances the synergistic interaction.
