Cascade anchoring strategy for general mass production of high-loading single-atomic metal-nitrogen catalysts

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 10; no. 1; pp. 1278 - 11
• Main Authors: Zhao, Lu, Zhang, Yun, Huang, Lin-Bo, Liu, Xiao-Zhi, Zhang, Qing-Hua, He, Chao, Wu, Ze-Yuan, Zhang, Lin-Juan, Wu, Jinpeng, Yang, Wanli, Gu, Lin, Hu, Jin-Song, Wan, Li-Jun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 20.03.2019; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 140/133; 140/146; 147/135; 147/137; 147/143; 639/301/299/161; 639/301/299/886; 639/638/77/884; Anchoring; Atomic properties; Carbon; Carbon dioxide; Catalysis; Catalysts; Catalytic oxidation; Chelates; Chelating agents; Chelation; Chemical synthesis; Coordination compounds; Dispersion; Glucose; High temperature; Humanities and Social Sciences; INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY; Iron; Laboratories; Mass production; Metal ions; Metals; multidisciplinary; Nickel; Nitrogen; Physics; Reduction; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Single atom catalysts; Strategy
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-09290-y

Although single-atomically dispersed metal-N x on carbon support (M-NC) has great potential in heterogeneous catalysis, the scalable synthesis of such single-atom catalysts (SACs) with high-loading metal-N x is greatly challenging since the loading and single-atomic dispersion have to be balanced at high temperature for forming metal-N x . Herein, we develop a general cascade anchoring strategy for the mass production of a series of M-NC SACs with a metal loading up to 12.1 wt%. Systematic investigation reveals that the chelation of metal ions, physical isolation of chelate complex upon high loading, and the binding with N-species at elevated temperature are essential to achieving high-loading M-NC SACs. As a demonstration, high-loading Fe-NC SAC shows superior electrocatalytic performance for O 2 reduction and Ni-NC SAC exhibits high electrocatalytic activity for CO 2 reduction. The strategy paves a universal way to produce stable M-NC SAC with high-density metal-N x sites for diverse high-performance applications. Although single atom catalysts (SACs) with high-loading metal-Nx have great potential in heterogeneous catalysis, their scalable synthesis remains challenging. Here, the authors develop a general cascade anchoring strategy for the mass production of a series of metal-Nx SACs with a metal loading up to 12.1 wt%.