Molecular Engineering of Single-Atom Catalysts
Bridging homogeneous and heterogeneous worlds
Single-atom catalyst (SAC) is a emerging family of materials with near-unity atomic efficiency. However, the active sites on SACs prepared via common protocols usually do not have consistent and well-defined structures, and the method to fine-control the local environment is also lacking.
The molecular catalysts, on the other hand, can have their structure exactly engineered, but usually suffers from sluggish charge transfer kinetics at the electrode, limiting their application in electrocatalysis.
Here we combine the best of both worlds by heterogenizing transition metal phthalocyanine complexes onto nanocarbon support via $\pi-\pi$ stacking. The molecular structure and the nanostructure of the support can be individually optimized to achieved multi-level design, so as to access a broader designing space including activity, stability, and selectivity of the molecular-based SACs.