MoP assists the promotion on FeP and FeN for oxygen reduction and zinc-air battery.

It is of great significance but remains challenging to simultaneously development cost-effective and efficient non-noble metal electrocatalysts (NNMEs) for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in both alkaline and acidic solutions. In current work, a multi-component synergism system is developed, which is comprised of molybdenum phosphide (MoP) shell onto iron phosphide clusters anchored on carbon matrixes that embedded with numerous FeN species (MoP/FeP-FeN). The optimized MoP/FeP-FeN electrocatalyst delivers a synergistic enhancement in both alkaline and acidic ORR performances: E: 0.885 V (0.1 M KOH electrolyte) and E: 0.742 V (0.1 M HClO electrolyte). Furthermore, the equipped zinc-air batteries (ZABs) of MoP/FeP-FeN exhibit a power density of 140.6 mW cm@219.6 mA cm, which surpasses the corresponding FeP-FeN and commercial Pt/C catalyst. The computational calculations reveal that MoP/FeP-FeN shows a relative increase of d-band center closer to Fermin level than FeP-FeN, tuning the rate-determining step to conversion of *O to *OOH intermediate, thus significant reducing the energy barrier and enhancing ORR activity. This strategy opens new opportunities to rational design of Fe-based nanocomposites for stimulated ORR and further ZAB activities.