Nat. Commun.: Breakthrough of zero valence metal atom catalysis in Institute of chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences

With the support of NSFC major projects, the graphite alkyne research team of Institute of chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences has established a new concept of atomic catalysis, changed the traditional concept of catalysis, and realized the unsolved problems in this field The research results were published online on nature communications under the title of "anchoring zero value single atoms of nickel and iron on graphics for hydrogen evolution" (DOI: 10.1038 / s41467-018-03896-4) The transition metal atom catalyst is the research frontier in the field of catalysis At present, the transition metal atom catalyst mainly exists in the form of clusters, and the valence state cannot be determined or is not an integer valence state In recent years, scientists have been looking forward to the emergence of zero valent transition metal atom catalyst Therefore, the preparation of zero valent transition metal atom catalyst is a great challenge in the field of catalysis In 2010, the team first synthesized graphene, a new allotrope of carbon, and opened up a new field of carbon science research Starting from the special chemical structure and electronic structure of graphene, the team successfully solved a series of basic scientific problems in this field in theory and experiment, and cooperated with Qingdao Institute of bioenergy, Hong Kong University of technology and Suzhou Institute of nanotechnology to expand the role of graphene in catalysis Research on energy, electrochemical driver and photoelectric properties (NAT Commun 2017, 8, 1172; NAT Commun 2018, 9, 752; angelw Chem Int ed 2018, 57, 774 and adv mater 2018, DOI: 10.1002/adma.201707082) Excellent performance has been found, especially in electric energy and Mechanical energy conversion A new actuation mechanism of alkyne ene chemical bond conversion is proposed, which changes the capacitance actuation mechanism of traditional electrochemical actuator The specific capacitance of graphene actuator is as high as 237fg-1, and the energy conversion efficiency is as high as 6.03%, which is far higher than the current electrochemical energy conversion device (the energy conversion efficiency is less than 1%), which has created a new record of electrical energy and mechanical energy conversion of electrochemical actuator Recently, they proposed that through the synergism between the alkyne bond, super large surface and pore structure of graphene and the transition metal catalytic atom, they successfully loaded the zero valence atoms of transition metal Ni and Fe on graphene and realized the high dispersion of its surface active components The key problems, such as the migration, aggregation and charge transfer instability of monoatomic catalysts, which exist on traditional supports as clusters, are solved The zero valent transition metal catalyst supported by graphite alkyne shows high stability in the catalytic process The metal content of the catalyst is only one thousandth of that of the traditional monoatomic catalyst, but its catalytic performance is more excellent When the overpotential is 0.2V, the mass activity of the catalyst is 34.6 times that of Pt / C (20%), and the maximum number of active sites per unit area of the iron and nickel catalysts is (2.56 × 1016), respectively ）And (2.38 × 1016) are 17 times and 15.8 times of Pt (111) (1.5 × 1015), respectively, and show ultra-high stability in acid system The emergence of atomic catalysts has opened up a new direction for the development of new and efficient catalysts This achievement was highly praised by the associate editor of Nature magazine and colleagues.