Metal or metal oxide-doped functional porous carbon-based composites have shown fascinating prospects as photocatalysts [
36], electrocatalysts [
37,
38], supercapacitors [
39], etc. Benefitting from the structural designability and component flexibility, multilayer ZIF-L heterostructures could serve as precursors of multilayer ZIF-L heterostructure derivatives for remarkable performances. Here, a range of multilayer ZIF-L heterostructures were calcinated to multilayer ZIF-L heterostructure derivatives at 600°C for 2 h (Figure
5(a) and S10). The morphology, compositions, and porous structure of these multilayer ZIF-L heterostructure derivatives can be further characterized by TEM, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and BET analysis. According to the TEM images, all derivatives maintained the unique hierarchical layer structures of their pristine ZIF-L heterostructures. Specifically, ZIF-L-Co derivative (Figure
5(b)) with leaf-like morphology exhibited uniform distribution of nanoparticles with size of ~10 nm. ZIF-L-3 derivative (Figure
5(c)) exhibited three-layer hierarchical structure including an inner layer and two outer layers. The inner ZIF-L-Co derivative layer held nanoparticles with size of ~8 nm, while the outer ZIF-L-Zn derivative layers showed no nanoparticles. Similar to ZIF-L-3 derivative, ZIF-L-5 derivative (Figure
5(d)) and ZIF-L-7 derivative (Figure
5(e)) presented corresponding multilayer derivative structures which were composed of ZIF-L-Zn and ZIF-L-Co derivative layers. According to the XPS data of ZIF-L-Co (Figure S12(a)) and ZIF-L-3 (Figure S12(d)) derivatives, their C 1s spectra exhibited similar four peaks located at 284.8, 285.9, 287.1, and 289.0 eV which corresponded to C−C, C−N, C−O, and C=O bonds, respectively (Figure S12(b) and S122(e)). In their N 1
s spectra, similar two peaks which located at 398.9 and 400.8 eV were assigned to pyridinic and pyrrolic nitrogen, respectively, which proved the nitrogen doping in the carbon frameworks (Figure S12(c) and S12(f)) [
40]. The Zn 2
p spectrum of ZIF-L-3 derivative exhibited quite a strong signal peak at 1021.7 eV, which suggested that the zinc was doped in ZIF-L-3 derivative (Figure S12(h)). At the same time, the Co 2
p spectrum of ZIF-L-Co derivative was comprised of two main peaks located at 778.4 and 780.6 eV, which corresponded to Co
0 and Co
2+ (Figure
5(g)). However, the peak signal of ZIF-L-3 derivative was too weak to reflect the chemical state of cobalt (Figure S12(g)), probably because the outer layer cover of ZIF-L-Zn derivative restricted the XPS detection. In addition, the high-resolution TEM (HRTEM) image of ZIF-L-Co derivative (Figure
5(f)) showed the crystalline Co with a clear 0.20 nm lattice spacing which was ascribed to their (111) surface [
41] and the crystalline CoO with a clear 0.24 nm lattice spacing which was consistent with their (111) surface [
42], implying the nanoparticles were composed of Co and CoO. Therefore, it was recognized that these multilayer ZIF-L heterostructure derivatives were composed of cobalt and nitrogen-doped carbon or cobalt, zinc, and nitrogen-doped carbon, denoted as 1-CoNC, 3-CoZnNC, 5-CoZnNC, and 7-CoZnNC, respectively.