Modulating Spin of Atomic Manganese Center for High-Performance Oxygen Reduction Reaction

Single atom catalysts (SACs) are promising non-precious catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Unfortunately, the ORR SACs usually suffer from unsatisfactory activity and in particular poor stability. Herein, we report atomically dispersed manganese (Mn) embedded on nitrogen and sulfur co-doped graphene as an efficient and robust electrocatalyst for ORR in alkaline electrolyte, realizing a half-wave potential (E_1/2) of 0.883 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) with negligible activity degradation after 40,000 cyclic voltammetry (CV) cycles in 0.1 M KOH. Introducing sulfur (S) to form Mn-S coordination changes the spin state of single Mn atom from high-spin to low-spin, verified by electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and magnetic susceptibility measurements as well as density functional theory (DFT) calculations, which effectively optimizes the oxygen intermediates adsorption over the single Mn atomic sites and thus greatly improves the ORR activity.