Professor Zhonghua Xiang from BUCT reported the pyrolysis-free synthesis of Nitrogen-coordinated SACs with high activity and stability at room temperature on Science Advances
Nitrogen-coordinated single atom catalysts (SACs) hold various advantages such as high activity and atomic efficiency, demonstrating important research value and application prospect in the fields of energy and catalysis. However, the precise design and controllable synthesis method are still the bottleneck problems restricting the large-scale development of nitrogen coordinated SACs. Nowadays, the common synthesis of single atom mainly depends on high temperature carbonization. Unfortunately, the carbonization process avoidably generates the unpredictable changes and even destruction of the material structure and active center, resulting in complex preparation process and poor reproducibility.
Recently, Prof. Zhonghua Xiang from the College of Chemical Engineering, also a member of State Key Laboratory of Organic and Inorganic Composites and the visiting researcher of Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, made important progress in the preparation of SACs with highly efficient electrochemical performance with cooperation with the team of academician Suojiang Zhang from the Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Based on the previous achievements, they developed a π-conjugated skeleton framework with considerable solubility (COFBTC) and controllably prepared the single Fe-N4 sites. Especially, they directly prepared nitrogen coordinated SACs with high catalytic activity and stability were at room temperature via the construction of conjugated π-electron pathways between the single atom sites and graphene matrix, which demonstrating better performance than commercial Pt/C catalyst during the oxygen reduction reaction and excellent stability in the zinc air battery device.
Figure (1) The atomic-level controllable construction of a single atomic center; (2) Preparation of the nitrogen coordinated SACs at room temperature; (3) The as-prepared SACs better performance than commercial Pt/C catalyst during the oxygen reduction reaction.
The method developed by the team to prepare the nitrogen-coordinated SACs with atomic accuracy is easy to amplify and highly repeatable, demonstrating good universality and broad application prospects. This work provides a new way for the preparation of SACs. At the same time, this pyrolysis-free method can also provide a new idea for the design of efficient catalysts and the construction of model catalysts towards not only electrocatalysis but also thermocatalysis. This work A Pyrolysis-Free Path Towards Superiorly Catalytic Nitrogen-Coordinated Single Atom (DOI:10.1126/sciadv.aaw2322) has published on the world-famous journals Science Advances. The links of this article is: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/8/eaaw2322.
The theoretical calculation part of this work was strongly supported by the team of academician Suojiang Zhang from Institute of Process Engineering. The process of preparing soluble COF materials and pyrolysis-free strategy is detailed in their previous achievements (ACS Nano, 2019,13, 878 and Angew. Chem. Int. Ed, 2018, 57, 12567).