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Abstract Fe─N─C materials with Fe─N 4 sites are considered as most promising non‐precious metal‐based electrocatalysts for low‐cost proton‐exchange‐membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). Breaking the trade‐off between activity and stability has been a long‐standing challenge in the field of acidic oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Herein, a “top‐down” thermally‐driven strategy is developed to achieve highly active pyrrolic N‐coordinated Fe sites in a high spin state with Fe atomic cluster (Fe n @Fe─N pyrr ─C) and discover that the neighboring Fe n cluster can synergistically stabilize such vulnerable Fe─N 4 sites by inhibiting their protonation. Consequently, the Fe n @Fe─N pyrr ─C catalysts exhibit much enhanced ORR activity and stability, endowing PEMFCs with a high power density of 804.6 mW cm −2 (testing conditions: 80 °C, 100% RH, 2.0 bar) and over 100 h durability (at 0.5 V). These findings open up opportunities for the exploration of durable Fe─N─C ORR electrocatalysts for non‐precious metal‐based PEMFCs and other applications.
Xue et al. (Mon,) studied this question.