Fe(III) Docking-Activated Sites in Layered Birnessite for Efficient Water Oxidation

Non-noble metal catalysts for promoting the sluggish kinetics of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) are essential to efficient water splitting for sustainable hydrogen production. Birnessite has a local atomic structure similar to that of an oxygen-evolving complex in photosystem II, while the catalytic activity of birnessite is far from satisfactory. Herein, we report a novel Fe-Birnessite (Fe-Bir) catalyst obtained by controlled Fe(III) intercalation- and docking-induced layer reconstruction. The reconstruction dramatically lowers the OER overpotential to 240 mV at 10 mA/cm² and the Tafel slope to 33 mV/dec, making Fe-Bir the best of all the reported Bir-based catalysts, even on par with the best transition-metal-based OER catalysts. Experimental characterizations and molecular dynamics simulations elucidate that the catalyst features active Fe(III)-O-Mn(III) centers interfaced with ordered water molecules between neighboring layers, which lower reorganization energy and accelerate electron transfer. DFT calculations and kinetic measurements show non-concerted PCET steps conforming to a new OER mechanism, wherein the neighboring Fe(III) and Mn(III) synergistically co-adsorb OH* and O* intermediates with a substantially reduced O-O coupling activation energy. This work highlights the importance of elaborately engineering the confined interlayer environment of birnessite and more generally, layered materials, for efficient energy conversion catalysis.