Single atom catalysts (SACs) feature the maximum atom economy and superior performance for various catalysis fields, attracting tremendous attention in materials science. However, conventional synthesis of SACs involves high energy consumption at high temperature, complicated procedures, a massive waste of metal species and poor yields, greatly impeding the development of SACs. Herein, Wu’s group presents a facile dangling bond trapping strategy to construct SACs under ambient condition from easily accessible bulk metals (such as Fe, Co, Ni, and Cu, etc.). Their research has been published on November 1th, 2019 in Advanced Materials.

The team found that when mixing graphene oxide (GO) slurry with metal foam and drying in ambient conditions, the M0 would transfer electrons to the dangling oxygen groups on GO, obtaining M^δ+ (0<δ<3) species. Meanwhile, M^δ+ coordinates with surface oxygen dangling bond of GO to form M-O bond. Subsequently, the metal atoms were pulled out of the metal foam by M-O bond under the assistant of sonication to give M SAs/GO materials. This synthesis at room temperatures from bulk metals provides a versatile platform for facile and low-cost fabrication of SACs, crucial for its mass production and practical application in diverse industrial reactions.

The 1W1B-XAFS station at Beijing Synchrotron Radiation has helped the team to probe the electronic structure and coordination environment of single atom catalysts. The EXAFS analysis shows the metal atoms (Fe、Co、Ni and Cu) coordinate with oxygen atoms and no metal bond (M-M) can be observed, which show the formation of single atom catalysts. These results show this dangling bond trapping method can make the direct transformation from bulk metal to single atom catalysts come true. This highly efficient and energy-saving strategy is beneficial for promoting the large-scale production of single atom catalysts.

Article:

Yunteng Qu, Liguang Wang, Zhijun Li, Peng Li, Qinghua Zhang, Yue Lin, Fangyao Zhou, Huijuan Wang, Zhengkun Yang, Yidong Hu, Mengzhao Zhu, Xuyan Zhao, Xiao Han, Chengming Wang, Qian Xu, Lin Gu, Jun Luo, Lirong Zheng, Yuen Wu*, Ambient synthesis of single atom catalysts from bulk metal via trapping of atoms by surface dangling bond, Advanced Materials, 31(2019), 1904496.