Single-Atom Catalysis

The Focus Group on Single-Atom Catalysis involves Hans Fischer Senior Fellow Prof. Tao Zhang (Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences) and his host Prof. Fritz E. Kühn (TUM School of Natural Sciences, Professorship of Molecular Catalysis).

The emergence of single-atom catalysts (SACs), first proposed in 2011 by Tao Zhang and coworkers, marks the downsizing of nanocatalysis to an atomic level. Such catalysts, featuring isolated metal species ligated on defined solid supports, maximizing the metal’s atomic efficiency and providing both uniform and well-defined active sites, can exist now in many coordination environments. Accordingly, it should be possible, starting both from “classical” homogeneous (molecular) catalysts by synthesizing appropriate precursor molecules and from “classical” surface chemistry, to engineer active atomic sites on a very well defined and appropriate support surface.

The team will focus on rationally designing the synthesis of uniform SACs with excellent catalytic activities. The structure-performance relationship and dynamic evolution of the active sites at an atomic scale is to be investigated, which will significantly accelerate the progress in the use of SACs to bridge molecularly defined chemistry, now usually dome in solution and heterogeneous surface chemistry, based on novel single atom-based activity centers.

Despite intensifying efforts to create and strengthen interdisciplinary research, most research topics as well as researcher get increasingly specialized. The team aims to provide trained researchers who are able to handle both molecular based solution chemistry and surface chemistry, focusing on the novel SAC concept. Principles, established for highly selective but also usually sensitive and short-lived homogeneous catalyst systems will be transferred to much more stable SACs to combine the advantages of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis in an unprecedented way.