Boosting activity toward oxygen reduction reaction of a hyper-crosslinked FeCu bimetal nanocatalyst via mimicking Cytochrome c oxidase

The slow kinetic efficiency of the cathode oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and high catalyst cost of fuel cells has seriously hindered the development of clean energy technologies. Herein, a novel Fe-Cu dual atomic sites embedded in hyper crosslinked N-doped carbon skeleton (FeCu@NC) catalyst was fabricated via mimicking both the constituents of active centers and Fe-N4 microstructure of Cytochrome c oxidase (CcO). The FeCu@NC exhibits a superior ORR activity, with about 40 mV more positive halfwave potential (E1/2) than that of commercial Pt/C catalyst in base. Importantly, the FeCu@NC displays an excellent durability (keep 92.7% activity after 20000s), which is superior to commercial Pt/C. Experimental data combined with theoretical calculation show the remarkable performance of this catalyst is attributed to the design of Cu、Fe bifunctional catalytic synergy reference CcO, the unique synergistic effect between Cu and Fe coordination units in which metal Cu serves as another electron donor to increase the electron density of Fe-N4 centers and thus facilitate O2 reduction.