Asymmetric CoN P Trifunctional Catalyst with Tailored Electronic Structures Enabling Boosted Activities and Corrosion Resistance in an Uninterrupted Seawater Splitting System.

Employing seawater splitting systems to generate hydrogen can be economically advantageous but still remains challenging, particularly for designing efficient and high Cl -corrosion resistant trifunctional catalysts toward the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), oxygen evolution reaction (OER), and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, single CoNC catalysts with well-defined symmetric CoN sites are selected as atomic platforms for electronic structure tailoring. Density function theory reveals that P-doping into CoNC can lead to the formation of asymmetric CoN P sites with symmetry-breaking electronic structures, enabling the affinity of strong oxygen-containing intermediates, moderate H adsorption, and weak Cl adsorption.