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  4. Rational Design of Asymmetric FeN<sub>3</sub>S Single‐Atom Sites for <i>e</i><sub>g</sub> Orbital Engineering Toward Efficient ORR in PEMFCs
 
research article

Rational Design of Asymmetric FeN3S Single‐Atom Sites for eg Orbital Engineering Toward Efficient ORR in PEMFCs

Chen, Chengjie
•
Lai, Xin
•
Jian, Yongqi
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November 21, 2025
Small

Iron and nitrogen co‐doped FeNC catalysts with symmetric Fe‐N 4 as the active site are the most promising alternative to noble metal catalysts for proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). However, the symmetric structure in the Fe–N 4 site endows oxygen intermediates with strong binding energy, which hinders the activity optimization of the active center. In this work, an asymmetric configuration (Fe‐N 3 SC) is constructed to alleviate the electron localization caused by the d – π conjugation of Fe‐N 4 . The asymmetric configuration can effectively reduce the splitting energy of the Fe‐3d orbital, leading to a decrease in the energy barrier for the electrons to fill in the e g orbitals. Increased electron occupancy in the e g orbitals reduces the bond order/adsorption of the oxygen‐containing intermediates on the active site, which leads to increased oxygen reduction (ORR) activity. The results of this work highlight the possibility of asymmetric configurations in manipulating and optimizing electron transfer and spin regulation of single‐atom catalysts.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1002/smll.202508823
Author(s)
Chen, Chengjie
Lai, Xin
Jian, Yongqi
Zhang, Dengke
Huang, Wenyu
Chen, Jian
Xie, Fangyan
Jin, Yanshuo
Lee, Ming‐Hsien
Li, Guixiang
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Date Issued

2025-11-21

Publisher

Wiley

Published in
Small
Article Number

e08823

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
ISIC-DIV  
FunderFunding(s)Grant NumberGrant URL

National Natural Science Foundation of China

22209056,22075102,22005120,21576301,51973244

Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation of Guangdong Province

2023A1515010270,2023A1515010921

Available on Infoscience
November 24, 2025
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/256189
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