Inside Back Cover: Understanding the improvement mechanism of plasma etching treatment on oxygen reduction reaction catalysts (EXP2 1/2024)

Abstract

Plasma etching is an effective strategy to synthesize the electrocatalysts, and modify its performance. In this work, the activity improvement mechanism of electrocatalysts by plasma etching is revealed. The highly active metal-nitrogen species introduced by nitrogen plasma etching treatment are recognized as the main contribution to the improved electrocatalytic activity, and simultaneously the defects induced by plasma etching also contribute to the high performance.