General Synthesis of a Diatomic Catalyst Library via a Macrocyclic Precursor-Mediated Approach

Heterogeneous catalysts containing diatomic sites are often hypothesized to have distinctive reactivity due to synergistic effects, but there are limited approaches that enable the convenient production of diatomic catalysts (DACs) with diverse metal combinations. Here, we present a general synthetic strategy for constructing a DAC library across a wide spectrum of homonuclear (Fe₂, Co₂, Ni₂, Cu₂, Mn₂, and Pd₂) and heteronuclear (Fe-Cu, Fe-Ni, Cu-Mn, and Cu-Co) bimetal centers. This strategy is based on an encapsulation-pyrolysis approach, wherein a porous material-encapsulated macrocyclic complex mediates the structure of DACs by preserving the main body of the molecular framework during pyrolysis. We take the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) as an example to show that this DAC library can provide great opportunities for electrocatalyst development by unlocking an unconventional reaction pathway. Among all investigated sites, Fe-Cu diatomic sites possess exceptional high durability for ORR because the Fe-Cu pairs can steer elementary steps in the catalytic cycle and suppress the troublesome Fenton-like reactions.