Keywords
Coordination Structure
Adsorption Energetics
Selectivity
Operando Evidence
Durability
Abstract
A central challenge in electrocatalytic active-site design is to compare studies whose mechanisms and validation settings do not share a single denominator. The present review uses chalcogenide-anion regulation of Ni2Mo6Te8 stability and nitrate-to-ammonia selectivity and cooperative atomically dispersed Fe-N4 and Sn-Nx coordination sites for oxygen reduction as focal cases for a boundary-aware synthesis. Two target papers are triangulated against 12 locally validated publications. The comparison follows coordination structure, adsorption energetics, selectivity, operando evidence, durability and deliberately separates mechanistic interpretation from performance ranking, because the latter can conceal incompatible experimental or operational conditions. Across the evidence base, the decisive issue is alignment: coordination structure shapes what is observed, adsorption energetics shapes how it is compared, and durability governs whether the conclusion can be transferred. Uncertainty is most informative when reported as part of the result rather than treated as a postscript. The contribution is a decision-oriented synthesis that connects method selection to failure cost and treats reproducibility, provenance, and bounded generalization as first-order design requirements.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Brooks Tucker, Clayton Norton, Dawson Walsh (Author)