Conspectus
Single-atom catalysts (SACs) offer unique advantages
such as high
(noble) metal utilization through maximum possible dispersion, large
metal–support contact areas, and oxidation states usually unattainable
in classic nanoparticle catalysis. In addition, SACs can serve as
models for determining active sites, a simultaneously desired as well
as elusive target in the field of heterogeneous catalysis. Due to
the complexity of heterogeneous catalysts bearing a variety of different
sites on metal particles and the respective support as well as at
their interface, studies of intrinsic activities and selectivities
remain largely inconclusive. While SACs could close this gap, many
supported SACs remain intrinsically ill-defined due to complexities
arising from the variety of different adsorption sites for atomically
dispersed metals, hampering the establishment of meaningful structure–activity
correlations. In addition to overcoming this limitation, well-defined
SACs could even be utilized to shed light on fundamental phenomena
in catalysis that remain ambiguous when studies are obscured by the
complexity of heterogeneous catalysts.
In this Account, we describe
approaches to break down the complexity
of supported single-atom catalysts through the careful choice of oxide
supports with specific binding motives as well as the adsorption of
well-defined ligands such as ionic liquids on single metal sites.
An example of molecularly defined oxide supports is polyoxometalates
(POMs), which are metal oxo clusters with precisely known composition
and structure. POMs exhibit a limited number of sites to anchor atomically
dispersed metals such as Pt, Pd, and Rh. Polyoxometalate-supported
single-atom catalysts (POM-SACs) thus represent ideal systems for
the in situ spectroscopic study of single atom sites during reactions
as, in principle, all sites are identical and thus equally active
in catalytic reactions. We have utilized this benefit in studies of
the mechanism of CO and alcohol oxidation reactions as well as the
hydro(deoxy)genation of various biomass-derived compounds. More so,
the redox properties of polyoxometalates can be finely tuned by changing
the composition of the support while keeping the geometry of the single-atom
active site largely constant. We further developed soluble analogues
of heterogeneous POM-SACs, opening the door to advanced liquid-phase
nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and UV–vis techniques but,
in particular, to electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS)
which proves powerful in determining catalytic intermediates as well
as their gas-phase reactivity. Employing this technique, we were able
to resolve some of the long-standing questions about hydrogen spillover,
demonstrating the broad utility of studies on defined model catalysts.