A DFT Study on the Activity Origin of Fe−N−C Sites for Oxygen Reduction Reaction

Iron-nitrogen-carbon materials have been known as the most promising non-noble metal catalyst for proton-exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), but the genuine active sites for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) are still arguable. Herein, by the thorough density functional theory investigations, we unravel that the planar Fe₂N₆ site exhibits excellent ORR catalytic activity over both FeN₃ and FeN₄ sites, and the potential-determining step is determined to be the *OH hydrogenation step with an overpotential of 0.415 V. The ORR activity of Fe₂N₆ site originates from the low spin magnetic moment (1.11 μ_B), which leads to high antibonding states and low d-band center of the Fe center, further leads to weak binding strength of *OH species. The density of FeN₄ sites only has little influence on the ORR activity owing to the similar interaction between active site and intermediates in ORR. Our research sheds light on the activity origin of iron-nitrogen-carbon materials for ORR.