Interfacial Cladding Engineering Suppresses Atomic Thermal Migration to Fabricate Well-Defined Dual-Atom Electrocatalysts

摘要

As an emerging frontier, dual-atom catalysts (DACs) have sparked broadinterest in energy catalysis, however the undesired thermal atomic migrationduring synthesis process pose significant challenge in enabling furtherapplications. Herein, an interfacial cladding strategy is reported to constructmonodispersed dual-atom metal sites (metal = Fe, Cu, or Ir), derived frommetal dimer molecule functionalized metal-organic frameworks. First, metaldimer molecule is immobilized at the surface of cubic ZIF-8 by the interfacialcladding of polydopamine, thus preventing the potentially thermal migrationof metal atoms during pyrolysis. Then, the paired metal atoms are anchoredonto a hollow carbon nanocage and achieve nitrogen coordinated dual-atommetal sites after annealing at 900 ℃. Representatively, the resultant dualFe catalysts exhibit remarkable activity for electrocatalytic oxygen reductionreaction with half-wave potential of 0.951 and 0.816 V in alkaline and acidicmedia, respectively. The findings open up an avenue for the rational design ofdual-atom catalysts.