A universal ligand mediated method for large scale synthesis of transition metal single atom catalysts.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 31594928.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-12510-0 and PMC identifier 6783464.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
There is interest in metal single atom catalysts due to their remarkable activity and stability. However, the synthesis of metal single atom catalysts remains somewhat ad hoc, with no universal strategy yet reported that allows their generic synthesis. Herein, we report a universal synthetic strategy that allows the synthesis of transition metal single atom catalysts containing Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Ru, Pt or combinations thereof. Aberration-corrected high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy and extended X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy confirm that the transition metal atoms are uniformly dispersed over a carbon black support. The introduced synthetic method allows the production of carbon-supported metal single atom catalysts in large quantities (>1 kg scale) with high metal loadings. A Ni single atom catalyst exhibits outstanding activity for electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide, achieving a 98.9% Faradaic efficiency at -1.2 V.