The design of electrocatalysts with lower overpotential is of great significance for water splitting. Herein, cobalt hydroxide carbonate (CCH) has been used as a model to demonstrate the boost of its oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity by atomic doping of W6+(W-CCH). The 5 at % W doping reduced the OER overpotential of CCH by 95.3 mV at 15 mA cm(-2), and increased the current density by 2.8 times at 1.65 V. 5%W-PCCH parallel to 5%W-CCH-based electrolyzer only required a potential of 1.65 V to afford 10 mA cm(-2) for full water splitting. The W6+ in CCH are active sites for O-2(-) adsorption and induced an incesaed electron density near the Fermi level, which facilitates the charge transfer during electrocatalysis. The W6+ doping has been validated as an efficient booster for transition-metal carbonate hydroxides-based electrocatalysts, which has half or more than half-filled d-bands. (c) 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.