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Supported single-atom catalysts: synthesis, characterization, properties, and applications

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Abstract

In recent years, there has been a wide research in supported single-atom catalysts (SACs), which contain only isolated individual metal atoms dispersed on an appropriate support or coordinated with the surface atoms of the support. The SACs exhibit many fascinating characteristics including high activity, selectivity, and maximum atomic utilization. These characteristics arise from the low coordination status, quantum size effect, and the strong metal–support interaction, which have proved to be very powerful in many typical heterogeneous catalysis field including oxidation, hydrogenation, the water–gas shift reaction, methanol steam reforming, electrocatalysis, and photocatalysis. In this review, we summarized the recent progress in synthesis, characterizations, properties, and applications of SACs.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the National Nature Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21473248), the CAS/SAFEA International Partnership Program for Creative Research Teams, and the National Science Foundation under Grant #IIP-1059286 to the American Society for Engineering Education. All individual contributions in the cited references are gratefully acknowledged, and any omission is regretted.

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Correspondence to Ling Zang or Chuanyi Wang.

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Liu, J., Bunes, B.R., Zang, L. et al. Supported single-atom catalysts: synthesis, characterization, properties, and applications. Environ Chem Lett 16, 477–505 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10311-017-0679-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10311-017-0679-2

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