Mechanistic insight into the active centers of single/dual-atom Ni/Fe-based oxygen electrocatalysts

Wenchao Wan, Yonggui Zhao, Shiqian Wei, Carlos A. Triana, Jingguo Li, Andrea Arcifa, Christopher S. Allen, Rui Cao and Greta R. Patzke ()
Additional contact information
Wenchao Wan: University of Zurich
Yonggui Zhao: University of Zurich
Shiqian Wei: Leshan Normal University
Carlos A. Triana: University of Zurich
Jingguo Li: University of Zurich
Andrea Arcifa: Empa, Swiss Federal Institute for Materials Science and Technology
Christopher S. Allen: Diamond Light Source Ltd
Rui Cao: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Greta R. Patzke: University of Zurich

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract Single-atom catalysts with maximum metal utilization efficiency show great potential for sustainable catalytic applications and fundamental mechanistic studies. We here provide a convenient molecular tailoring strategy based on graphitic carbon nitride as support for the rational design of single-site and dual-site single-atom catalysts. Catalysts with single Fe sites exhibit impressive oxygen reduction reaction activity with a half-wave potential of 0.89 V vs. RHE. We find that the single Ni sites are favorable to promote the key structural reconstruction into bridging Ni-O-Fe bonds in dual-site NiFe SAC. Meanwhile, the newly formed Ni-O-Fe bonds create spin channels for electron transfer, resulting in a significant improvement of the oxygen evolution reaction activity with an overpotential of 270 mV at 10 mA cm−2. We further reveal that the water oxidation reaction follows a dual-site pathway through the deprotonation of *OH at both Ni and Fe sites, leading to the formation of bridging O2 atop the Ni-O-Fe sites.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-25811-0 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-25811-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25811-0

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().