Multilayer stabilization for fabricating high-loading single-atom catalysts
Yazhou Zhou, Xiafang Tao, Guangbo Chen, Ruihu Lu, Ding Wang, Ming‐Xi Chen, Enquan Jin, Juan Yang, Hai‐Wei Liang, Yan Zhao, Xinliang Feng, Akimitsu Narita, Kläus Müllen
Abstract
Abstract Metal single-atom catalysts (M-SACs) have emerged as an attractive concept for promoting heterogeneous reactions, but the synthesis of high-loading M-SACs remains a challenge. Here, we report a multilayer stabilization strategy for constructing M-SACs in nitrogen-, sulfur- and fluorine-co-doped graphitized carbons (M = Fe, Co, Ru, Ir and Pt). Metal precursors are embedded into perfluorotetradecanoic acid multilayers and are further coated with polypyrrole prior to pyrolysis. Aggregation of the metals is thus efficiently inhibited to achieve M-SACs with a high metal loading (~16 wt%). Fe-SAC serves as an efficient oxygen reduction catalyst with half-wave potentials of 0.91 and 0.82 V (versus reversible hydrogen electrode) in alkaline and acid solutions, respectively. Moreover, as an air electrode in zinc–air batteries, Fe-SAC demonstrates a large peak power density of 247.7 mW cm −2 and superior long-term stability . Our versatile method paves an effective way to develop high-loading M-SACs for various applications.