碳载金属催化剂是聚电解膜燃料电池等领域使用最为广泛的一种催化剂。但在电化学环境下，该类型催化剂会发生降解，导致催化性能快速衰减。这主要是因为在电催化过程中，碳容易被氧化，导致被担载的活性金属颗粒发生脱落及团聚；而且随着电势升高，碳氧化就越明显。此外，研究表明，在电催化过程中，金属的存在可能会促进碳氧化，但这还需要强有力的证据支持。这是因为传统的碳载金属催化剂，碳-金属间以点接触的方式结合，参与碳氧化反应的金属活性位点数量非常有限，导致反应前后碳的结构变化不明显。为此，在前期研究基础上，申请人拟采取多种策略来增加金属-碳的接触位点，放大金属（单质金属/合金）对碳（无定形碳/石墨碳）的助氧化效应，继而通过透射电镜等测试手段直接观测碳层表面的结构变化，并结合分子动力学模型计算研究金属电催化剂助碳氧化的作用机制。本项目研究成果对优化碳载金属电催化剂设计及提高其电化学稳定性具有重要的科学指导意义。

Carbon supported metal catalysts are widely used in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells. However, in the electrochemical environment, heavy degradation can be suffered for such catalysts, leading to the fast decay of the catalytic performance. This degradation can be predominantly attributed to the strong tendency of the electrooxidation of carbon supports, resulting in the detachment and subsequent aggregation of active metal particles. Moreover, the electrooxidation can be accelerated with an increased potential. As reported, the oxidation of carbon could be promoted by metal catalysts, however further evidences are required to demonstrate this oxidation behavior. In most of the cases, the promotion of Pt to the oxidation of carbon supports is fairly limited due to the few contact sites between the metal−support in a typical pointcontact way where spherelike metal particles are dispersed on carbon nanospheres, making it difficult to directly observe the carbon oxidation process. To increase the contact sites between metal–support, in this work, a multi-strategy route is carried out. This magnifies the catalysis effect of metal catalysts to cthe arbon oxidation, making it easy to investigate the carbon oxidation process by observing the structural change of the carbon surface from TEM images. Combining the molecular dynamics simulations, the mechanism of the catalysis of metal upon carbon oxidation is studied, which is promising in optimizing the design of carbon supported metal electrocatalysts and improving their electrochemical stability.