Atomic metal coordinated to nitrogen-doped carbon electrocatalysts for proton exchange membrane fuel cells: a perspective on progress, pitfalls and prospectives

Proton exchange membrane fuel cells require reduced construction costs to improve commercial viability, which can be fueled by elimination of platinum as the O₂ reduction electrocatalyst. The past 10 years has seen significant developments in synthesis, characterisation, and electrocatalytic performance of the most promising alternative electrocatalyst; single metal atoms coordinated to nitrogen-doped carbon (M-N-C). In this Perspective we recap some of the important achievements of M-N-Cs in the last decade, as well as discussing current knowledge gaps and future research directions for the community. We provide a new outlook on M-N-C stability and atomistic understanding with a set of original density functional theory simulations.