Role of N in Transition-Metal-Nitrides for Anchoring Platinum-Group Metal Atoms toward Single-Atom Catalysiss

     Recently, Prof. Erqing Xie (LZU), Prof. Yongmin He (HNU), and Prof. Chao Zhu (SEU) jointly reported their work entitled "Role of N in Transition-Metal-Nitrides for Anchoring Platinum-Group Metal Atoms toward Single-Atom Catalysis" in Small methods.

     Here, inspired by N-doped graphene substrate, they explored the role of N in transition metal nitrides for anchoring single metal atoms toward single-atom catalysis. A pore-rich metallic vanadium nitride nanosheet was fabricated as one supporting-substrate example, whose surface features abundant unsaturated-N-sites with lower binding energy than that of widely-used N-doped graphene. Impressively, we found that this support can anchor nearly all platinum-group single atoms (e.g., Pt, Pd, Ir, and Ru), and even be extendable to multiple SACs, i.e., binary (Pt/Pd) and ternary (Pt/Pd/Ir). As a proof-of-concept application for hydrogen production, Pt-based SAC (Pt₁-VN) performs excellently, exhibiting a mass activity up to 22.55 A mg^-1_Pt at 0.05 V and a high turnover frequency (TOF) value close to 0.350 H₂ s^-1, superior to commercial Pt/C catalyst. The catalyst's durability can be further improved by using binary (Pt₁Pd₁-VN) SAC. Their work provides inexpensive and durable nitride-based support, giving a possible pathway for universally constructing platinum-group SACs.

Generality to other platinum-group metal SAC, binary SAC, and ternary SAC. a, AC HAADF-STEM images of Pd, Ir, and Ru single-atom on VN support (from left to right), in which single metal atoms are marked by white circles. EDS mapping images confirm uniform distributions of V, N, and corresponding Pd, Ir, and Ru elements in the samples.