Harnessing Coordination Chemistry for Selective and Efficient Water Decontamination in Metal-Based Homogeneous Oxidation Systems

Ligand coordination offers a coordination-chemistry strategy for overcoming these limitations by reshaping metal electronic structures, regulating oxidant activation, and redirecting reactive-species evolution.

This review organizes recent advances in coordination-regulated homogeneous AOPs around O-donor, N-donor, and mixed N,O-donor ligands, and categorizes their catalytic roles into four mechanistic functions: (1) stabilizing metal centers and accelerating redox cycling; (2) steering oxidant activation toward radical or high-valent metal–oxo pathways; (3) shifting the consumption of transient high-valent intermediates from nonproductive self-decay/disproportionation toward contaminant oxidation; and (4) enabling direct nonradical electron- or O-transfer oxidation through metal–oxidant complexes.