Supported noble metal catalysts play a significant role in many chemical transformations. Maximizing the efficiency of the expensive active components is of importance for fundamental studies and practical applications. Single-atom catalysts (SACs) have recently demonstrated excellent performances [1-3]. One challenge for practical applications of SACs is to increase the amount of metal loading. To keep the metal atoms isolated, most of the recently fabricated SACs have a low level of metal loading. We developed a modified adsorption method to anchor Pt atoms onto surfaces of pre-formed α-Fe2O3 nanocrystallites. With this synthesis method, we can significantly increase the amount of isolated single Pt atoms anchored onto the surfaces of the metal oxide supports. For example, we have been able to synthesize Pt1 SACs with a number density of approximately 1.2 Pt1 atoms/nm2. Further increase of the metal loading may require alternative synthesis approaches. The initial tests of these high-load Pt1 SACs for CO oxidation unambiguously demonstrated that the total CO conversion on these SACs is linearly proportional to the loading amount of the total Pt in the catalysts, resulting in a constant turn-over-frequency and specific activity regardless of the Pt loading. It is expected that with such a high amount of metal loading and further stabilization of the isolated single atoms SACs may find practical industrial applications [4]. References [1] B. Qiao et al., Nat. Chem., 2011, 3, 634. [2] J. Lin et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2013, 135, 15314. [3] H. Wei et al., Nat. Commun., 2014, 5, Article # 5634. [4] This work was supported by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences of Arizona State University and the National Science Foundation under CHE-1465057. The authors acknowledge the use of facilities in the John M. Cowley Center for High Resolution Electron Microscopy at Arizona State University.

High-load Pt1 single-atom catalysts for CO oxidation

251st National Meeting (2016)

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