Heteroatom Doping of Transition Metallic Compounds for Water Electrolysis

With high storage capacity and zero emissions, hydrogen energy stands as a favorable replacement for fossil fuels. Therefore, earth-abundant electrocatalysts have attracted significant research interest. Particularly, a heteroatom doping strategy demonstrated exceptional capability in precisely modulating the electronic structure of transition metal-based catalysts while optimizing their local coordination environments, thereby representing a new paradigm for intrinsic catalytic activity enhancement. This review provides a systematic overview of recent advances in heteroatom doping strategies for transition metal catalysts. It is particularly focused on elucidating the fundamental mechanisms through atom dopants, which can efficiently regulate electronic configurations and catalytic behavior. By comprehensively analyzing structure–activity relationships and underlying catalytic principles, this work will establish a framework for precise doping strategies to engineer high-performance electrocatalysts.