Localizing the Long‐Range Disorder of Reconstructed Cobalt Oxyhydroxides for Anion Exchange Membrane Water Electrolysis

Controlling the long-range disorder of dynamically reconstructed nanostructures represents a challenging but important approach for achieving practical catalysts with high performance. Here, we report a facile fluoride-mediated-stabilization strategy to finely localize the long-range disorder of reconstructed amorphous Co-based oxyhydroxide (CoOOH) nanosheets under oxygen evolution reaction (OER) conditions with compatible lattice-oxygen activation and regeneration for robust anion exchange membrane water electrolysis (AEMWE). The stabilized lattice Co by fluoride-induced bond reinforcing in pre-catalysts enabled localized long-range disorder of reconstructed amorphous oxyhydroxides. The localized long-range disorder can promote Co─O covalency for activating lattice oxygen and also induce tensile strain as an oxygen pump for regenerating lattice oxygen. The corresponding AEMWE yielded a cutting-edge current of 3.4 A cm^-2 at 2.0 V and remarkable stability with imperceptible degradation of 0.09 mV h^-1 in 1200 h. This work opens up a feasible avenue for developing targeted catalysts under operating conditions by finely tuning the long-range disorder during reconstruction.