Electrocatalysts optimized with nitrogen coordination for high-performance oxygen evolution reaction

Abstract Currently, under the background of urgent energy crisis, the water splitting, especially oxygen evolution reaction (OER), is of significance in application of clean energy storage and conversion. To further optimize electrocatalytic performance of materials, many researchers purposely design heteroatom functionalization strategy during synthesizing catalysts. Nitrogen (N) functionalization can alter the electronic structures to optimize the coordination environment of the active metal centers in the catalysts and improve the intermediate adsorption/desorption on the interface. Herein, we review the recent progress on synthetic approaches of N-functionalized catalysts for OER, including solution (small molecular complexes, metal–organic frameworks, etc. as precursors), solid-state (ball milling and chemical vapor deposition), interface, and noncovalent chemistry synthesis. Furthermore, the catalytic mechanism of N-coordinated active metal sites and the influence factors of OER performance are discussed, and the current challenges and outlook of OER catalysts with N-optimized coordination are also presented.