Publications
Iridium single-atom catalyst on nitrogen-doped carbon for formic acid oxidation synthesized using a general host–guest strategy
Zhi Li, Yuanjun Chen, Shufang Ji, Yan Tang, Wenxing Chen, Ang Li, Jie Zhao, Yu Xiong, Yuen Wu, Yue Gong, Tao Yao, Wei Liu, Lirong Zheng, Juncai Dong, Yu Wang, Zhongbin Zhuang, Wei Xing, Chun-Ting He, Chao Peng, Weng-Chon Cheong, Qiheng Li, Maolin Zhang, Zheng Chen, Ninghua Fu, Xin Gao, Wei Zhu, Jiawei Wan, Jian Zhang, Lin Gu, Shiqiang Wei, Peijun Hu, Jun Luo, Jun Li, Chen Chen, Qing Peng, Xiangfeng Duan, Yu Huang, Xiao-Ming Chen, Dingsheng Wang, Yadong Li
Nat. Chem. 12, 764-772 (2020)
Single-atom catalysts not only maximize metal atom efficiency, they also display properties that are considerably different to their more conventional nanoparticle equivalents, making them a promising family of materials to investigate. Herein we developed a general host–guest strategy to fabricate various metal single-atom catalysts on nitrogen-doped carbon (M1/CN, M = Pt, Ir, Pd, Ru, Mo, Ga, Cu, Ni, Mn). The iridium variant Ir1/CN electrocatalyses the formic acid oxidation reaction with a mass activity of 12.9 Amg−1Ir whereas an Ir/C nanoparticle catalyst is almost inert (~4.8 × 10−3 Amg−1Ir). The activity of Ir1/CN is also 16 and 19 times greater than those of Pd/C and Pt/C, respectively. Furthermore, Ir1/CN displays high tolerance to CO poisoning. First-principle density functional theory reveals that the properties of Ir1/CN stem from the spatial isolation of iridium sites and from the modified electronic structure of iridium with respect to a conventional nanoparticle catalyst.
UCLA, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
607 Charles E. Young Drive East, Box 951569
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1569
E-mail: xduan@chem.ucla.edu
607 Charles E. Young Drive East, Box 951569
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1569
E-mail: xduan@chem.ucla.edu