The precatalyst undergoes surface reconstruction during the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) process, and the reconstituted material is the one that really plays a catalytic role. However, the degree of surface reconstruction seriously affects the catalytic performance. For this reason, it is important to establish the link between the degree of reconstruction and catalytic activity based on a deep understanding of the OER mechanism for the rational design of high-performance OER electrocatalysts. Here, the reaction mechanism of OER is briefly introduced, the competition between adsorbate evolution mechanism (AEM) mechanism and lattice oxygen-mediated mechanism (LOM) mechanism is discussed, and several activity descriptors of OER reaction are summarized. The strategies to realize OER controllable surface reconstruction are emphatically introduced, including ion leaching, element doping, regulating catalyst size, heterogeneous structure engineering, and self-reconstruction. A mechanistic perspective is emphasized to understand the relationship between dynamic surface reconstruction and electronic structure. Controlled reconfiguration of OER surface can break the limitation of proportional relationship brought by traditional AEM mechanism, also can realize the switching between AEM mechanism and LOM mechanism, thus realizing ultra-low overpotential. This review will provide some reference for surface controllable reconstruction of OER transition metal-based catalysts and reasonable development of ideal catalytic performance.
Keywords: oxygen evolution reaction; surface controllable reconstruction; transition metals.
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