Yuanjun Chen

Isolated Single Iron Atoms Anchored on N-Doped Porous Carbon as an Efficient Electrocatalyst for the Oxygen Reduction Reaction

The development of low-cost, efficient, and stable electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is desirable but remains a great challenge. Herein, we made a highly reactive and stable isolated single-atom Fe/N-doped porous carbon (ISA Fe/CN) catalyst with Fe loading up to 2.16 wt %. The catalyst showed excellent ORR performance with a half-wave potential (E1/2 ) of 0.900 V, which outperformed commercial Pt/C and most non-precious-metal catalysts reported to date. Besides exceptionally high kinetic current density (Jk ) of 37.83 mV cm-2 at 0.85 V, it also had a good methanol tolerance and outstanding stability. Experiments demonstrated that maintaining the Fe as isolated atoms and incorporating nitrogen was essential to deliver the high performance. First principle calculations further attributed the high reactivity to the high efficiency of the single Fe atoms in transporting electrons to the adsorbed OH species.

Confined Pyrolysis within Metal–Organic Frameworks To Form Uniform Ru3 Clusters for Efficient Oxidation of Alcohols

Here we report a novel approach to synthesize atomically dispersed uniform clusters via a cage-separated precursor preselection and pyrolysis strategy. To illustrate this strategy, well-defined Ru3(CO)12 was separated as a precursor by suitable molecular-scale cages of zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs). After thermal treatment under confinement in the cages, uniform Ru3 clusters stabilized by nitrogen species (Ru3/CN) were obtained. Importantly, we found that Ru3/CN exhibits excellent catalytic activity (100% conversion), high chemoselectivity (100% for 2-aminobenzaldehyde), and significantly high turnover frequency (TOF) for oxidation of 2-aminobenzyl alcohol. The TOF of Ru3/CN (4320 h-1) is about 23 times higher than that of small-sized (ca. 2.5 nm) Ru particles (TOF = 184 h-1). This striking difference is attributed to a disparity in the interaction between Ru species and adsorbed reactants.

Kinetically Controlling Surface Structure to Construct Defect‐Rich Intermetallic Nanocrystals: Effective and Stable Catalysts

Kinetic control of surface defects is achieved, and cubic, concave cubic, and defect-rich cubic intermetallic Pt3 Sn nanocrystals are prepared for the electro-oxidation of formic acid. The generality of this kinetic approach is demonstrated by the fabrication of Pt-Mn nanocrystals with different surface defects. The defect-rich nanocrystals exhibit high catalytic activity and stability concurrently, indicating their potential application in fuel cells.

Controllable synthesis of Pt–Cu nanocrystals and their tunable catalytic properties

In this work, Pt–Cu nanocrystals (NCs) with octahedral and multi-octahedral structures were facilely prepared by a wet chemistry method. Furthermore, we have evaluated the catalytic activity of these Pt–Cu NCs, and the results indicated that the composition and morphology strongly influence the catalytic performance in the p-chloronitrobenzene hydrogenation and methanol electro-oxidation reactions, respectively.

Discovering Partially Charged Single-Atom Pt for Enhanced Anti-Markovnikov Alkene Hydrosilylation

The hydrosilylation reaction is one of the largest-scale application of homogeneous catalysis and is widely used to enable the commercial manufacture of silicon products. However, considerable issues including disposable platinum consumption, undesired side reactions and unacceptable catalyst residues still remain. Here, we synthesize a heterogeneous partially charged single-atom platinum supported on anatase TiO2 (Pt1δ+/TiO2) catalyst via an electrostatic-induction ion exchange and two-dimensional confinement strategy, which can catalyze hydrosilylation reaction with almost complete conversion and produce exclusive adduct. Density functional theory calculations reveal that unexpected property of Pt1δ+/TiO2 originates from atomic dispersion of active species and unique partially positive charge Ptδ+ electronic structure that conventional nanocatalysts do not possess. The fabrication of single-atom Pt1δ+/TiO2 catalyst accomplishes a reasonable use of Pt through recycling and maximum atom-utilized efficiency, indicating the potential to achieve a green hydrosilylation industry.