Structure design of oxide path mechanism-based electrocatalysts for enhanced oxygen evolution reaction performance

The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) suffers from sluggish kinetics, necessitating efficient electrocatalysts to reduce overpotentials in water splitting. Currently recognized OER mechanisms primarily include the adsorbate evolution mechanism (AEM), lattice oxygen mechanism (LOM), and oxide path mechanism (OPM). Compared to AEM, limited by scaling relationships, and LOM, constrained by stability issues, the OPM offers a promising alternative by enabling direct O–O bond formation via dual active sites, thus bypassing *OOH intermediates and lattice O involvement and achieving a balance between activity and durability. However, activating the OPM process requires precise control over the spatial and electronic structure of active sites, making the design of OPM-based catalysts challenging. While previous reviews have focused on homo/heteronuclear diatomic perspectives of OPM-based catalysts, it is urgent to systematically summarize design strategies to provide a rational reference for their development. Herein, a review of design strategies for OPM-based OER catalysts across three scales is comprehensively presented, including in-situ engineering, doping-enabled sites reconstruction, and introducing new sites for nanoparticles, direct synthesis or post-treatments for molecular catalysts, and doping or template strategies for atom pairs or arrays. The unique advantage of atom arrays is also highlighted, and their future research directions and possible strategies are discussed. This review provides a systematic summary and forward-looking perspectives for rationally designing high-performance OPM-based OER catalysts.