Co–Ag Atomic Pairs Enable Localized Lattice Oxygen Activation for Stable Oxygen Evolution

Abstract Developing high‐performance, stable catalysts for the sluggish oxygen evolution reaction (OER) remains a critical challenge for sustainable energy technologies. While the lattice oxygen mechanism (LOM) offers a promising pathway to break the scaling adsorption relationship of the conventional adsorbate evolution mechanism (AEM), activating lattice oxygen without compromising structural integrity has proven elusive. Here, a novel strategy is reported to activate the local LOM by constructing Ag─Co atom pairs within CoOOH lattice via a facile silver mirror reaction coupled with electrochemical reconstruction. This activation of lattice oxygen arises from the enhanced Co─O covalency near Ag sites. The resulting catalyst achieves a low overpotential of 334 mV at 500 mA cm −2 and exhibits a 13‐fold enhancement in mass activity over pristine CoOOH. Crucially, the localized activation of lattice oxygen mitigates structural degradation, enabling exceptional stability—only a 10 mV overpotential increase after 120 h at 100 mA cm −2 . When integrated into a hybrid zinc battery, Ag‐CoOOH delivers a high‐energy efficiency of 86.2% (1 mA cm −1 ) and sustains operation for over 400 h. This work offers a novel paradigm for harnessing the LOM without sacrificing durability, providing a blueprint for designing next generation electrocatalysts for efficient energy conversion.