电子科技大学夏川团队报道了用石墨烯量子点合成高金属负载量单原子催化剂的通用方法。相关研究成果于2021年6月24日发表在《Nature Chemistry》。

过渡金属单原子催化剂在每个金属原子位上表现出非凡的活性，但金属原子密度较低（通常小于5wt%或1at%）限制了其整体催化性能。

该文中，研究人员报道了一种合成高过渡金属原子负载量达40wt%或3.8at.%的单原子催化剂的通用方法，其与文献中的基准相比有几倍的改进。后来交织成一个碳基体的石墨烯量子点，被用作一个提供大量锚定位点的支持，从而有利于产生高密度的过渡金属原子，原子之间有足够的间距避免金属原子聚集。在Ni单原子催化剂上，随着Ni负载量的增加，电化学CO2还原（作为代表性反应）的活性显著增加。

附：英文原文

Title: General synthesis of single-atom catalysts with high metal loading using graphene quantum dots

Author: Chuan Xia, Yunrui Qiu, Yang Xia, Peng Zhu, Graham King, Xiao Zhang, Zhenyu Wu, Jung Yoon (Timothy) Kim, David A. Cullen, Dongxing Zheng, Peng Li, Mohsen Shakouri, Emilio Heredia, Peixin Cui, Husam N. Alshareef, Yongfeng Hu, Haotian Wang

Issue&Volume: 2021-06-24

Abstract: Transition-metal single-atom catalysts present extraordinary activity per metal atomic site, but suffer from low metal-atom densities (typically less than 5wt% or 1at.%), which limits their overall catalytic performance. Here we report a general method for the synthesis of single-atom catalysts with high transition-metal-atom loadings of up to 40wt% or 3.8at.%, representing several-fold improvements compared to benchmarks in the literature. Graphene quantum dots, later interweaved into a carbon matrix, were used as a support, providing numerous anchoring sites and thus facilitating the generation of high densities of transition-metal atoms with sufficient spacing between the metal atoms to avoid aggregation. A significant increase in activity in electrochemical CO2 reduction (used as a representative reaction) was demonstrated on a Ni single-atom catalyst with increased Ni loading.

DOI: 10.1038/s41557-021-00734-x

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41557-021-00734-x