Abstract
Noble metals manifest themselves with unique electronic structures and irreplaceable activity toward a wide range of catalytic applications but are unfortunately restricted by limited choice of geometric structures spanning single atoms, clusters, nanoparticles, and bulk crystals. Herein, we propose how to overcome this limitation by integrating noble metal atoms into the lattice of transition metal oxides to create a new type of hybrid structure. This study shows that iridium single atoms can be accommodated into the cationic sites of cobalt spinel oxide with short-range order and an identical spatial correlation as the host lattice. The resultant Ir0.06Co2.94O4 catalyst exhibits much higher electrocatalytic activity than the parent oxide by 2 orders of magnitude toward the challenging oxygen evolution reaction under acidic conditions. Because of the strong interaction between iridium and cobalt oxide support, the Ir0.06Co2.94O4 catalyst shows significantly improved corrosion resistance under acidic conditions and oxidative potentials. This work eliminates the "close-packing" limitation of noble metals and offers promising opportunity to create analogues with desired topologies for various catalytic applications.
Original language | English (US) |
---|---|
Journal | Journal of the American Chemical Society |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 25 2021 |
Bibliographical note
KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2021-03-29Acknowledgements: This work was financially supported by the Australian Research Council (FL170100154, DP160104866, and DP190103472). Y.H.Z. acknowledges financial support from Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (LR18B030003), National Natural Science Foundation of China (51701181, 21771161), and the Thousand Talents Program for Distinguished Young Scholars. J.S. was supported by the Chinese CSC Scholarship Program. DFT computations were performed by using services offered from the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) and Phoenix High Performance Computing, which are supported by the Australian Government and the University of Adelaide. XAS measurements were conducted at the Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility (1W1B, BSRF)
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Biochemistry
- Colloid and Surface Chemistry
- General Chemistry
- Catalysis