Spectroscopy

Quantum mechanics

X-ray absorption fine structure

Catalysis

Oxygen evolution

Adsorption

Engineering

Electrochemistry

Metallurgy

Materials science

Embedded system

Computer science

Chemical engineering

Geology

Superstructure

Oceanography

Physical chemistry

Physics

Nanotechnology

Organic chemistry

Carbon nanotube

Atom (system on chip)

Metal-organic framework

Cobalt

Chemistry

Electrode

Bifunctional

Nano Energy

Single-atom catalysts (SACs) always exhibit distinctive catalytic activities for oxygen reduction/evolution reactions (ORR/OER), making SACs relevant in a number of crucial applications including fuel cells, metal-air batteries, as well as in industrial applications. Recently, fabricating SACs with rich multidimensional nanoarchitectures has become fascinating but challenging. Here, for the first time, we explore a facile and practicable “sacrificed-template” method to prepare cobalt single-atom electrocatalysts with Urchin-like Nano-Tube hierarchical structures (UNT Co SAs/N-C) derived from well-aligned metal-organic-frameworks (MOFs) superstructure (UNT ZIF-67). The as-prepared UNT Co SAs/N-C catalysts exhibit superior performance both in ORR/OER. XAFS and density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveal that outstanding catalytic activities stem from high-quality single-atom dispersion, precise local coordination of CoN4, and well-aligned carbon matrix based on MOFs superstructures. Our work provides new perspective in enriching SACs synthesis methodologies.

High-performance single atom bifunctional oxygen catalysts derived from ZIF-67 superstructures