The anion-exchange-membrane fuel cell (AEMFC) is an attractive and cost-effective energy-conversion technology because it can use Earth-abundant and low-cost non-precious metal catalysts. However, non-precious metals used in AEMFCs to catalyse the hydrogen oxidation reaction are prone to self-oxidation, resulting in irreversible failure. Here we show a quantum well-like catalytic structure (QWCS), constructed by atomically confining Ni nanoparticles within a carbon-doped-MoO_x/MoO_x heterojunction (C-MoO_x/MoO_x) that can selectively transfer external electrons from the hydrogen oxidation reaction while remaining itself metallic. Electrons of Ni nanoparticles gain a barrier of 1.11 eV provided by the QWCS leading to Ni stability up to 1.2 V versus the reversible hydrogen electrode (V_RHE) whereas electrons released from the hydrogen oxidation reaction easily cross the barrier by a gating operation of QWCS upon hydrogen adsorption. The QWCS-catalysed AEMFC achieved a high-power density of 486 mW mg_Ni⁻¹ and withstood hydrogen starvation operations during shutdown–start cycles, whereas a counterpart AEMFC without QWCS failed in a single cycle.

阴离子交换膜燃料电池（AEMFC）是一种有吸引力且具有成本效益的能量转换技术，因为它可以使用地球上储量丰富且成本低廉的非贵金属催化剂。然而，AEMFC中用于催化氢氧化反应的非贵金属容易发生自氧化，导致不可逆的失效。在这里，我们展示了一种类量子阱催化结构（QWCS），该结构由原子限制在碳掺杂的MoO _x /MoO _x异质结（C-MoO _x /MoO _x ）内的Ni纳米颗粒构成，可以选择性地从氢转移外部电子发生氧化反应，同时保持其金属性。 Ni 纳米颗粒的电子获得 QWCS 提供的 1.11 eV 势垒，导致 Ni 相对于可逆氢电极 (V _RHE ) 的稳定性高达 1.2 V，而从氢氧化反应中释放的电子很容易通过 QWCS 的门控操作穿过势垒。氢吸附。 QWCS催化的AEMFC实现了486 mW mg _Ni ^-1的高功率密度，并且在关闭-启动循环期间经受住氢饥饿操作，而没有QWCS的对应AEMFC在单个循环中失败。