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Heterogeneous single-atom catalysis

Nature Reviews Chemistry volume 2, pages 65–81 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

Single-atom catalysis has arguably become the most active new frontier in heterogeneous catalysis. Aided by recent advances in practical synthetic methodologies, characterization techniques and computational modelling, we now have a large number of single-atom catalysts (SACs) that exhibit distinctive performances for a wide variety of chemical reactions. This Perspective summarizes recent experimental and computational efforts aimed at understanding the bonding in SACs and how this relates to catalytic performance. The examples described here illustrate the utility of SACs in a broad scope of industrially important reactions and highlight the advantages these catalysts have over those presently used. SACs have well-defined active centres, such that unique opportunities exist for the rational design of new catalysts with high activities, selectivities and stabilities. Indeed, given a certain practical application, we can often design a suitable SAC; thus, the field has developed very rapidly and afforded promising catalyst leads. Moreover, the control we have over certain SAC structures paves the way for designing base metal catalysts with the activities of noble metal catalysts. It appears that we are entering a new era of heterogeneous catalysis in which we have control over well-dispersed single-atom active sites whose properties we can readily tune.

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Fig. 1: Single-atom catalysts (SACs) incorporate many advantageous features of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts.
Fig. 2: Atomic structures of Pt1/FeO x catalysts.
Fig. 3: Single Pt centres can bond to N-rich or S-rich regions in doped carbonaceous supports.
Fig. 4: Structural identification of a Co–N–C single-atom catalyst.
Fig. 5: Au clusters on oxides can act as dynamic single-atom catalysts for CO oxidation.
Fig. 6: A single-atom Fe–N–C oxidation catalyst and related metalloprotein.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank J. Liu, B. Qiao, Y.-G. Wang, X.-F. Yang and R. Rousseau for fruitful discussions. This work is supported by the National Key Projects for Fundamental Research and Development of China (2016YFA0202801), National Natural Science Foundation of China (21690080, 21690084, 21721004, 21673228, 21522608, 21503219, 21672210, 21590792 and 91645203), and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB17000000 and 17020100). The authors thank Y. Ren, S. Niu, W. Liu, M. Zhou, J.-C. Liu and X. Yang for assisting in the preparation of some of the figures.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, iChEM (Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials), Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, China

    Aiqin Wang & Tao Zhang

  2. Department of Chemistry and Key Laboratory of Organic Optoelectronics & Molecular Engineering of Ministry of Education, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Jun Li

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Tao Zhang

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Wang, A., Li, J. & Zhang, T. Heterogeneous single-atom catalysis. Nat Rev Chem 2, 65–81 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-018-0010-1

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