Synergy between isolated Fe and Co sites accelerates oxygen evolution

Dual-metal catalysts with synergistic effect exhibit enormous potential for sustainable electrocatalytic applications and mechanism research. Compared with mono-metal-site catalysts, dual-metal-site catalysts exhibit higher efficiency for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) due to reduced energy barrier of the process involving proton-coupled multi-electron transfer. Herein, we construct dual-metal Fe-Co sites coordinated with nitrogen in graphene (FeCo-NG), which exhibits high OER performance with onset overpotential of only 126 mV and Tafel slope of 120 mV·dec⁻¹, showing that the rate-determining step is controlled by the single-electron transfer step. Theoretical calculations reveal that the FeN₄ site exhibits lower OER overpotential than the CoN₄ site due to appropriate adsorption energy of OOH* on the former, while the O* adsorbed on the adjacent Co site could stabilize the OOH* on the FeN₄ site through hydrogen bond interaction.