Highly efficient single atom based materials in energy conversion

Since the size of metal components plays a pivotal role in determining the reactivity and selectivity of the heterogeneous catalysts; enormous efforts are invested in downsizing the metal particles to atomic level for ultimate catalysis over last decade. Single atoms (SAs) become an interesting research field towards material synthesis and performance optimization for diverse catalytic reactions. Significantly, various single atoms show remarkable catalytic activity and selectivity toward a variety of electrocatalytic reactions, including hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), oxygen evolution reaction (OER), oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), CO oxidation reaction, CO2 reduction reaction, water gas shift reaction, and hydrogenation with a high efficiency. It is noteworthy that the same foreign isolated substitutions can be tuned to show distinguishing catalytic activities via anchoring on different supports.