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Reduction-Controlled Atomic Migration for Single Atom Alloy Library
Yan-Ru Wang1, Qingfeng Zhuang2, Rui Cao3
1Department of Chemistry, Institute of Biomimetic Materials and Chemistry, Anhui Engineering Laboratory of Biomimetic Materials, Division of Nanomaterials and Chemistry, Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Institute of Energy, Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, Anhui, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
Picturing the atomic migration pathways of catalysts in a reactive atmosphere is of central significance for uncovering the underlying catalytic mechanisms and directing the design of high-performance catalysts. Here, we describe a reduction-controlled atomic migration pathway that converts nanoparticles to single atom alloys (SAAs), which has remained synthetically challenging in prior attempts due to the elusive mechanism. We achieved this by thermally treating the noble-metal nanoparticles M (M = Ru, Rh, Pd, Ag, Ir, Pt, and Au) on metal oxide (CuO) supports with H2/Ar. Atomic-level characterization revealed such conversion as the synergistic consequence of noble metal-promoted H2 dissociation and concomitant CuO reduction. The observed atomic migration pathway offers an understanding of the dynamic mechanisms study of nanomaterials formation and catalyst design.
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