Adjacent single-atom irons boosting molecular oxygen activation on MnO<sub>2</sub>.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 34521832.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-021-25726-w and PMC identifier 8440510.
- 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
Efficient molecular oxygen activation is crucial for catalytic oxidation reaction, but highly depends on the construction of active sites. In this study, we demonstrate that dual adjacent Fe atoms anchored on MnO<sub>2</sub> can assemble into a diatomic site, also called as MnO<sub>2</sub>-hosted Fe dimer, which activates molecular oxygen to form an active intermediate species Fe(O = O)Fe for highly efficient CO oxidation. These adjacent single-atom Fe sites exhibit a stronger O<sub>2</sub> activation performance than the conventional surface oxygen vacancy activation sites. This work sheds light on molecular oxygen activation mechanisms of transition metal oxides and provides an efficient pathway to activate molecular oxygen by constructing new active sites through single atom technology.