Rewriting Precursor Information into Working Structures and Interfaces: MOF‐Derived Electrodes for Rechargeable Batteries

ABSTRACT

Metal‐organic frameworks (MOFs) offer programmable precursors for battery electrodes because their metal nodes, organic linkers, pore organization, and particle morphology can be chosen before conversion. Yet conversion does not leave the parent framework intact. It rewrites precursor information through decomposition, carbonization, mass transport, phase nucleation, and reactive transformation. This Review develops a material‐centered framework that distinguishes information retention, reconstruction, erasure, and emergence across chemical and structural length scales. Instead of cataloguing final products by composition or battery type, it follows how precursor chemistry and conversion pathways generate working structures and interfaces. These outcomes are then related to phase and defect states, active‐phase dispersion, porous and hollow architectures, self‐supported electrodes, and interfacial chemistries that govern active‐phase coupling, soluble‐intermediate regulation, and metal nucleation/deposition. Across insertion, conversion, alloying, soluble‐intermediate, and metal‐deposition chemistries, electrochemical function depends on coupled structural and interfacial continuity. An interface matters only while it is accessible, electronically connected, and mechanically retained. An architecture becomes useful only when its local chemistry supports reversible reaction. Future progress will require predictive precursor‐to‐product relationships, characterization of working structures and interfaces during cycling, and function‐oriented deployment that balances electrochemical benefit against inactive mass, synthesis complexity, and manufacturing cost.