Oxygen-Reconstituted Active Species of Single-Atom Cu Catalysts for Oxygen Reduction Reaction
Liu Yang,
Haoxiang Xu,
Huibing Liu,
Xiaofei Zeng,
Daojian Cheng,
Yan Huang,
Lirong Zheng,
Rui Cao,
Dapeng Cao
Affiliations
Liu Yang
Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Organic-Inorganic Composites, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China
Haoxiang Xu
Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Organic-Inorganic Composites, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China
Huibing Liu
Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Organic-Inorganic Composites, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China
Xiaofei Zeng
Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Organic-Inorganic Composites, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China
Daojian Cheng
Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Organic-Inorganic Composites, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China
Yan Huang
Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Organic-Inorganic Composites, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China
Lirong Zheng
Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
Rui Cao
Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA
Dapeng Cao
Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Organic-Inorganic Composites, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China
Identification of an active center of catalysts under realistic working conditions of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) still remains a great challenge and unclear. Herein, we synthesize the Cu single atom embedded on nitrogen-doped graphene-like matrix electrocatalyst (abbreviated as SA-Cu/NG). The results show that SA-Cu/NG possesses a higher ORR capability than 20% Pt/C at alkaline solution while the inferior activity to 20% Pt/C at acidic medium. Based on the experiment and simulation calculation, we identify the atomic structure of Cu-N2C2 in SA-Cu/NG and for the first time unravels that the oxygen-reconstituted Cu-N2C2-O structure is really the active species of alkaline ORR, while the oxygen reconstitution does not happen at acidic medium. The finding of oxygen-reconstituted active species of SA-Cu/NG at alkaline media successfully unveils the bottleneck puzzle of why the performance of ORR catalysts at alkaline solution is better than that at acidic media, which provides new physical insight into the development of new ORR catalysts.
