Bottom-up synthesis of highly active catalyst by coal-derived carbon quantum dots for oxygen evolution reaction

•A bottom-up synthesis of highly active OER catalyst using coal-based quantum dot was developed.•The low-cost coal-based functionalized carbon quantum dot is similar to ligands in MOF-derived carbon synthesis.•The coal quantum dot derived electrocatalyst has impressive OER performance with low overpotential and Tafel slope. A unique bottom-up strategy was proposed for high quality electrocatalyst composed of uniform metal alloy nanoparticles embedded in carbon matrix using low-cost coal as precursor, which was realized by coordination of coal-based carbon quantum dots and metal ions followed by annealing. The as-synthesized electrocatalyst showed impressive electrocatalytic oxygen evolution performance. This method offered a general way to synthesize high quality nano-catalyst using low-cost coal as raw material.