Diatomic Fe-Co catalysts synergistically catalyze oxygen evolution reaction

The design of diatomic catalysts with uniformly dispersed metal atoms is expected to improve catalytic performance, which is conducive to the intensive comprehending of the synergistic mechanism between dual-metal sites for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) at the atomic level. Herein, we design a strategy to immobilize bimetallic Fe-Co atoms onto nitrogen-doped graphene to obtain a diatomic catalyst (DA-FC-NG) with FeN3-CoN3 configuration. The DA-FC-NG shows excellent OER activity with a low overpotential (η10 = 268 mV), which is superior to commercial iridium dioxide catalysts. Theoretical calculations uncover that the excellent activity of DA-FC-NG is due to the interaction between Fe and Co diatoms, which causes charge rearrangement and induces the adsorption of intermediates on the Fe–O–Co bridge structure, thus improving the catalytic OER performance. This work is of great significance for the design of highly active diatomic catalysts to replace noble metal catalysts for energy-related applications.