Regulating p-block metals in perovskite nanodots for efficient electrocatalytic water oxidation

Water oxidation represents the core process of many sustainable energy systems, such as fuel cells, rechargeable metal-air batteries, and water splitting. Material surface defects with high-energy hanging bonds possess superb intrinsic reactivity, whose actual performance is limited by the dimension and conductivity of the electrocatalyst. Herein we propose a surface defect-rich perovskite electrocatalyst through a p-block metal regulation concept to achieve high performance for oxygen evolution. As a typical p-metal, Sn⁴⁺ dissolves from the solid phase from model SnNiFe perovskite nanodots, resulting in abundant surface defects with superior water oxidation performance. An oxygen pool model and a fusion-evolution mechanism are therefore proposed for the in-depth understanding of p-block metal regulation and the oxygen evolution reaction. The energy chemistry unveiled herein provides insights into water oxidation and helps to tackle critical issues in multi-electron oxygen electrocatalysis.Electrocatalysts that possess high densities of surface defects show great promise for efficient water oxidation. Here the authors demonstrate that regulating the p-block metal content in perovskite nanodots imparts these materials with abundant surface defects and excellent electrocatalytic activity.