Rational Design of Electrocatalysts for Water Oxidation Reaction: Inspiration from Photosystem II

To address the ever-increasing societal demand for clean energy, electrocatalytic water splitting has attracted considerable interest for the efficient production of H2 and O2. However, the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is inherently sluggish and poses a significant challenge to the overall water splitting process. As a result, extensive research efforts have been dedicated to pursuing various approaches in developing efficient electrocatalysts for water oxidation. The oxygen-evolving center (OEC) of Photosystem II (PS II) is a natural model giving the prominent reference. Hence, this review discusses recent advances in the design of artificial electrocatalyst inspired by PS II. The discussion begins with a brief introduction to the fundamentals of electrocatalytic water oxidation and PS II. Subsequently, the progress of the novel electrocatalysts inspired by PS II is presented in the following two aspects: engineering various transition metal clusters to mimic the inorganic metal cluster of OEC (Mn4O5Ca), and utilizing different ligands to simulate the protein and amino acid environment around [Mn4O5Ca]. In addition to outlying the structures, catalytic activities, and corresponding mechanisms of these prepared catalysts, this present review concludes by proposing several effective development perspectives to this emerging field that warrant further investigation. The electrocatalyst design for water oxidation reaction inspired by natural photosystem II was reviewed. The structure of the catalytic core [Mn4O5Ca] was instructive for the engineering of mono-/multicluster metal structures, and the protein environment around the oxygen generation centers was insightful for the selection of artificial catalyst ligands.image