Lewis Acid Site Engineering in Chromite Spinels Orchestrated Surface Reconstruction and Surpasses RuO2 in Oxygen Evolution.

Atomic-scale engineering of chromite spinels featuring redox-active tetrahedral A-sites and strong Cr-O covalency offers a promising route to superior platinum-group-metal-free oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts. However, comprehensive studies addressing how cation substitution influences surface chemistry and governs OER activity and durability in chromite spinels remain limited. Here, a systematic investigation of the multicationic chromite series NixFeyCr3-x-yO4 is presented, identifying composition-dependent Lewis acidity as a descriptor of superior OER performance. It is further demonstrated that tuning surface acidity directly controls dynamic reconstruction processes and lattice-oxygen participation during spinel-based electrocatalysis. Following activation, the optimized Ni0.8Fe0.3Cr1.9O4 catalyst delivers a current density of 10 mA cm-2 at an overpotential of 235 mV, surpassing RuO2, with excellent long-term stability. Integrating microscopic and spectroscopic analysis with operando impedance spectroscopy, it shows that activation generates an oxyhydroxide overlayer and reveals a previously unrecognized link between surface Lewis acidity and the growth kinetics and activity of these shells. Density functional theory calculations indicate that Fe incorporation at octahedral sites raises the O 2p-band center and lowers oxygen-vacancy formation energy, promoting lattice-oxygen activation and triggering reconstruction, yielding enhanced OER. This work integrates cation-driven surface-acidity modulation, acidity-governed reconstruction, and OER activity enhancement into a unified predictive framework for designing earth-abundant spinel-based catalysts.