Electrocatalysis is considered to be  a promising and economical solution toward fossil fuel free energy market as a part of the solar fuels production cycle¹. To date, great efforts are being made to find new, efficient, and earth-abundant catalytic materials as a substitute for the currently used noble metal-based electrocatalysts. In this regard, Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) and MOF-converted materials have emerged as promising electrocatalysts toward those reactions owing to their intrinsic properties, as robust porosity and large surface area, crystalline structure, and tuneable chemical composition. Lately, we have shown several strategies for the utilization of MOF-based materials for different energy conversion applications. This was achieved by careful design of the MOF platform, ² introduction of guest molecules³, or by electrochemical conversion of the MOF (EC-MOF), into metal sulfide based catalysts. EC-MOF allows us to carefully control the rate of MOF-conversion, and therefore control the structure and chemical composition of the resulting catalyst.⁴ Nevertheless, Future improvement of electrocatalytic performance must involve the design of new methods for swift high-throughput electrochemical performance screening.

Scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) is a powerful scanning probe technique aimed for rapid electrochemical activity screening of catalytic materials with varying compositions. In addition, SECM was also utilized for micrometric scale deposition of a variety of materials as metals, polymers and semiconductors. In my research I am  combining the synthetical and analytical capabilities of SECM in order to fabricate MOF-based electrocatalysts and subsequently study their catalytic performance (HER and OER) in a localized fashion. Specifically, Using localized EC-MOF,⁵ We demonstrate an electrochemical conversion, in a localized fashion, of two types of MOF, ZIF-67 and (Fe,Ni)-MIL-53 into their respective metal sulfides (CoS­_x and FeNiS_x). Moreover, pristine MOF micropatterns (HKUST-1 and Al₂(OH)₂-TCPP) were electro-synthesized using an SECM tip.⁶ The electrocatalytic activities of the resulting MOF converted CoS_x, FeNiS_x,and pristine Al₂(OH)₂-TCPP MOF micropatterns were studied using SECM mapping. These results may open a new path for high-throughput electrocatalysts characterization, toward the development of highly efficient catalysts for a wide range of energy related reactions