Wu Hui group of Tsinghua University and its collaborators have made new progress in the synthesis of atom level dispersed metal catalysts

Recently, Wu Hui group of School of materials of Tsinghua University, together with Liu Limin group of Department of physics of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Zhang Xiaoyuan group of School of environment of Tsinghua University and Ge Binghui group of Anhui University, published on nature communications the title of - 60 ° C solution synthesis Of atomically performed cobalt electronics with superior performance) In this study, the temperature of solution synthesis was creatively reduced to minus 60 ℃, which solved the key problems of rapid aggregation, nucleation and growth of atoms in the process of solution synthesis, and obtained the atom level dispersed cobalt based oxygen reduction electrocatalyst with high activity, high stability and high device power output It provides a new research idea for large-scale solution synthesis of atom level dispersed metal catalyst In recent years, the effective synthesis and application of monoatomic catalysts or atom level dispersed metal catalysts are very important research directions in the field of catalysis and material research Due to the high dispersion of active components, the improvement of metal utilization efficiency and the interaction between active center and adjacent coordination atoms, monoatomic catalysts or atom level dispersed metal catalysts show excellent activity, stability and selectivity in processes such as CO oxidation reaction, organic hydrogenation reaction and oxygen reduction reaction In order to realize the dynamic and thermodynamic regulation of the metal atom nucleation process in the solution synthesis strategy, the research team made use of the low-temperature solution environment to significantly improve the nucleation potential barrier of the synthesis product and reduce the product nucleation kinetic rate, and proposed a basic and general strategy for the synthesis of stable atom level dispersed metal catalyst in the low-temperature solution (Figure 1) Fig 1 Comparison of nucleation regulation in solution synthesis at - 60 ℃ and room temperature (source: nature Communications) atom level dispersed cobalt based catalysts synthesized in low temperature solution and activated at high temperature are compared with traditional cluster / nano particle catalysts and commercial Pt / C in neutral and alkaline electrolyte environment, All of them showed significantly improved catalytic activity and stability of oxygen reduction In the application of microbial fuel cell devices, the catalyst also shows far higher power density (2550 ± 60 MW · m-2) and stability for 820 hours (Fig 2) than previously reported in the literature, which can realize sewage treatment and high-performance power generation at the same time The low temperature solution synthesis strategy not only shows a general method to inhibit the nucleation growth of products in the process of wet chemical synthesis, but also provides a new possibility to further understand the nucleation thermodynamics and kinetics of solution reaction, and to prepare high-performance catalytic materials by traditional solution chemical methods Fig 2 performance of microbial fuel cell with atom level dispersed metal catalyst (source: nature Communications) Wu Hui group, School of materials, Tsinghua University, has been engaged in macro preparation and Application Research of high-performance low dimensional nano materials for a long time Zhang Xiaoyuan research group, School of environment, Tsinghua University, has been engaged in sewage treatment, energy and resource research for a long time Wu Hui, associate professor, School of materials, Tsinghua University, Liu Limin, Professor, Department of physics, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Zhang Xiaoyuan, associate professor, School of environment, Tsinghua University, and Ge Binghui, Professor, Institute of material science and information technology, Anhui University are the co authors of this paper Dr Huang Kai, postdoctoral student, School of materials, Tsinghua University, Dr Zhang Le, Beijing computing center, and Dr Xu Ting, 2016 Ph.D student, School of environment, Tsinghua University, is the co first author The research was supported by NSFC, national key R & D program and National Postdoctoral fund.