Abstract
Designing efficient single-atom catalysts (SACs) for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is critical for water-splitting. However, the self-reconstruction of isolated active sites during OER not only influences the catalytic activity, but also limits the understanding of structure-property relationships. Here, we utilize a self-reconstruction strategy to prepare a SAC with isolated iridium anchored on oxyhydroxides, which exhibits high catalytic OER performance with low overpotential and small Tafel slope, superior to the IrO2. Operando X-ray absorption spectroscopy studies in combination with theory calculations indicate that the isolated iridium sites undergo a deprotonation process to form the multiple active sites during OER, promoting the O–O coupling. The isolated iridium sites are revealed to remain dispersed due to the support effect during OER. This work not only affords the rational design strategy of OER SACs at the atomic scale, but also provides the fundamental insights of the operando OER mechanism for highly active OER SACs.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 2701 |
Pages (from-to) | 1-9 |
Journal | Nature Communications |
Volume | 11 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Jun 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51771072), the Youth 1000 Talent Program of China, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, and Hunan University State Key Laboratory of Advanced Design and Manufacturing for Vehicle Body Independent Research Project (No. 71860007).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).
Funding
The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51771072), the Youth 1000 Talent Program of China, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, and Hunan University State Key Laboratory of Advanced Design and Manufacturing for Vehicle Body Independent Research Project (No. 71860007).