Tuning Active Site Flexibility by Defect Engineering of Graphene Ribbon Edge-hosted Fe-N₃ Sites

Nitrogen-doped, carbon-supported transition metal catalysts are excellent for several reactions. Structural engineering of M-N_x sites to boost catalytic activity is rarely studied. Here, we demonstrate that the structural flexibility of Fe-N₃ site is vital for tuning the electronic structure of Fe atoms and regulating the catalytic transfer hydrogenation (CTH) activity. By introducing carbon defects, we construct Fe-N₃ sites with varying Fe-N bond lengths distinguishable by X-ray absorption spectroscopy. We investigate the CTH activity by density-functional theory and microkinetic calculations and reveal that the vertical displacement of the Fe atom out of the plane of the support, induced by the Fe-N₃ distortion, raises the Fe $$ orbital and strengthens binding. We propose that the activity is controlled by the relaxation of the reconstructed site, which is further affected by Fe-N bond length, an excellent activity descriptor. We elucidate the origin of the CTH activity and principles for high-performing Fe-N-C catalysts by defect engineering.