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Updated: Jun 20, 2025

Synthesis and Performance Characterizations of Transition Metal Single Atom Catalyst for Electrochemical CO2 Reduction
Published on: April 10, 2018
Single-Atom Alloy Formation via Reaction-Driven Catalyst Restructuring
Georgios Giannakakis1, Yogita Soni1, Gregory L Novotny1
1Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts 02155, United States.
Abstract:
We demonstrate that single-atom alloy catalysts can be made by exposing physical mixtures of monometallic supported Cu and Pd catalysts to vinyl acetate (VA) synthesis reaction conditions. This reaction induces the formation of mobile clusters of metal diacetate species that drive extensive metal nanoparticle restructuring, leading to atomic dispersion of the precious metal, smaller nanoparticle sizes than the parent catalysts, and high activity and selectivity for both VA synthesis and ethanol dehydrogenation reactions. This approach is scalable and appears to be generalizable to other alloy catalysts.
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