Oxygen-Reconstituted Active Species of Single-Atom Cu Catalysts for Oxygen Reduction Reaction

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.